FPUD awards contract for Sandia and Bucknell reservoirs

The Fallbrook Public Utility District re-bid the re-coating of the district’s Sandia and Bucknell reservoirs, and the second round of bids gave FPUD a satisfactory expenditure to award.

A 5-0 FPUD board vote Jan. 28 approved a contract award to AMP United for the National City company’s bid amount of $700,848.

“The award ended up being about $150,000 lower by going back out to bid,” Jack Bebee, FPUD general manager, said. “That was definitely the appropriate action.”

In 2012, FPUD developed a 10-year program to re-coat all of the district’s steel reservoirs. Re-coating the interior and exterior of the tanks protects the steel from corrosion, which ensures continued service life of the reservoirs and avoids the need for more costly replacements.

“We’re just finishing up our program, the final couple of programs,” Bebee said.

Advancing the Sandia and Bucknell reservoirs to the contract stage leaves only the 2.8 million gallon reservoir in DeLuz to be re-coated since FPUD adopted the program.

“We have one coat to do next year and then a break before we start over again,” Bebee said. “We have a pause for about five years and we start over.”

Both the interior and the exterior of the Sandia Reservoir will be re-coated. The Bucknell Reservoir in DeLuz will be removed from service due to its deteriorated condition and seismic risk, so only the exterior of the tank will be re-coated and the reservoir will continue to house wireless communications facilities.

“Bucknell’s going out of service. It’s a very small tank,” Bebee said. “It’s just going to have some cell antennas on it.”

FPUD staff prepared a bid package for the re-coating and repair of the reservoirs, and Paso Robles Tank Inc. provided the only bid by the initial Dec. 5 deadline. Paso Robles Tank submitted a bid of $839,707. The bid was approximately 25 percent higher than the engineer’s estimate which was based on unit costs from past FPUD tank coating projects. Although increased demand for construction projects and higher material prices may be a factor in the higher bid price, FPUD staff believed that the project could be re-advertised more widely and re-bid to obtain competitive bids from multiple contractors. A 5-0 FPUD board vote Dec. 13 rejected the Paso Robles Tank bid and directed staff to re-bid the project.

“Because we only got the one bid, we just re-bid it,” Bebee said.

Six companies, including AMP and Paso Robles Tank, submitted bids by the Jan. 9 deadline for re-bidding the project. AMP has previously performed work for FPUD which was completed to the district’s satisfaction.

The re-bid did not affect the schedule.

“It will start sometime in the next 60 days, and they have several months to complete it,” Bebee said.

That will include the peak summer months, so FPUD will rely on reservoirs other than Sandia.

“Sandia will be out of service for the coating,” Bebee said.