The North Central Missouri Regional Water Commission held a special meeting for the purpose of selecting local contractors to perform Pre-permitting Lake-bed Preparation work prior to construction of the East Locust Creek Reservoir.
The firms selected will perform a variety of tasks on an “on-call” basis. The work includes fence row clearing, fencing, light demolition, dump site clean-up, structure removal and maintenance. While the lake project is awaiting both funding and permitting to move forward on the larger construction contract(s) for the lake, the NRCS has provided funds for lake-bed preparation and the Commission has some funds to meet its match requirement.
Better by Design out of Brookfield, and Linhart Construction out of Milan were selected as the two Prime contractors for the Commission with one other firm being named as an Alternate contingent upon their interest. While constrained by funding, timing, capacity and permitting considerations, the “on-call” contract could provide up to $1 million in work over the next three years.
Brad Scott, General Manager of the Commission stated, “We had 14 firms interested in the work; 10 of them appeared qualified to perform all or nearly all of the tasks, four of them were primarily fencers. The way the contract is constructed, on a ‘Task Order’ basis, it is particularly appealing to medium-sized local or regional firms. We have a great deal of work ahead of us and I hope to keep these folks busy and include them in the history we are making. ”
Rick Gardner, Chairman of the Commission, stated, “It remains a priority of the Commission to provide as much job opportunity to local firms as possible. By creating this ‘Contractor On-Call’ contract we can provide work opportunity for up to three years and perhaps beyond. We hope to provide work in large enough quantity to save the Commission money and to allow the contractor to make some.”
The selection process utilized four independent Commission contractors, three outside of the area and one from Marceline. Each evaluator scored the offers independently. They attempted to make “apples and apples” comparison with the information that was provided by offerors. They narrowed the 14 offers to the top six and then checked references. The offers were discussed by the evaluators and a recommendation was formulated. The recommendations were presented to the Commission and the Commission acted upon those recommendations.
The “On-call” contract comes on the heels of a large demolition contract (Phase 1) that was approved on August 8th. Work under both contracts will commence after Labor Day. Barring unforeseen circumstances and accounting for weather, the major demolition work should take approximately four weeks, once it begins. However, some work is contingent on permitting and funding that is expected, but yet to be in-hand.
The “On-call” contract work will continue as work and funds are available and the location of the work to be performed accessible.
The $98 million East Locust Creek Reservoir will have 2,356 acres of water atop 4,300 acres of land that sits five miles north of Milan, Missouri in Sullivan County. The East Locust Creek Reservoir will provide some 7 million gallons a day of water to 10 counties in the area.
