City awards contract for water well rehabilitation

The City Council awarded a contract this week to General Pump Company, Inc., for the Beverly Manor Well Rehab project. The contract was for $613,055, according to the staff report. The city manager was authorized to approve additional work requests up to 10% of that figure. The council also authorized the city manager to approve additional work requests “in the not-to-exceed amount of $375,000,” according to the staff report by Iris Lee, acting director of Public Works.

This was a Consent Calendar item. Consent items are voted on collectively, without discussion.

Seal Beach has four fresh-water wells, according to Lee.

“Beverly Manor Well is located at 3101 North Gate Road, and was placed into service in the mid-1960’s. The well has reached its serviceable life and is now temporarily inactive,” Lee wrote.

“In early 2022, investigative work was conducted to determine the most appropriate route to reestablish water production at the Beverly Manor Well,” Lee wrote.

“On August 4, 2022, construction bids were solicited,” Lee wrote.

Seal Beach received one bid from General Pump Company, Inc., according to the staff report.

“General Pump Company, Inc.’s (General Pump) bid proposal included calculation errors in the extended pricing that would have resulted in a higher total bid price had those errors not occurred; however, as required by the Notice of Inviting Bids, General Pump will honor the total base bid price of $613,055,” Lee wrote.

“While only one bid was received, the bid cost is in line with the engineer’s estimate and competitive with industry standards. Furthermore, General Pump has experience servicing the City’s water wells and is familiar with the sensitivity and constraints,” Lee wrote.

“The Project scope of work requires the Contractor to further clean the well casing and survey the liner. The contract includes basic case lining repairs; however, if the survey shows extensive deficiencies, a full casing liner may be warranted,” Lee wrote.

“An optional pricing item (Item No. A-1) for the full casing liner was requested as part of the bid, but not included in the base bid or award pricing, and the Project scope provides that the well casing work may be approved by change order at the conclusion of well rehabilitation, at the discretion of the City. In response, General Pump also submitted an optional bid for Item No. A-1 in the amount of $375,000. As such, staff recommends establishing a construction contingency of $375,000 that would allow for the additional casing liner work (Item No. A-1) to be approved by change order, as deemed necessary by the City Manager in her discretion, not to exceed $375,000,” Lee wrote.

“Approximately $5 million is budgeted in the Capital Improvement Program to rehabilitate the Beverly Manor site. Sufficient funds are available for this Project, and no budget adjustments are necessary,” Lee wrote.