Commission hopes to pare down floodwater costs
By Suzanne Werre
Editor
The terms valley gutter, catch basins and polypropylene pipe were bandied about over and over at last Wednesday’s special city commission meeting as commissioners tried to hone in on an acceptable figure for the upcoming floodwater project.
The commission met with David Wicke of Moore Engineering to try and pare down more of the estimated $4 million floodwater project the citizens just approved could be partially paid for with a half-cent sales tax for the next 15 years.
The actual amount the city has to come up with is actually about $3 million because the state water board has agreed to pay for about one million of the project, but that still doesn’t sit very well with the commissioners, who were hoping the lowest bid would be lower.
The lowest bid for the project came in from Weisz and Sons of Bismarck, and is for $4 million and some change.
By changing some of the pipes from reinforced concrete to polypropylene pipe, changing the route of the pipe that goes into Pryor’s Slough quite a bit farther west (going behind the former Grandma’s Place restaurant), and tweaking a few more things in Moore’s original plan, Wicke estimated the cost could come down by about $819,000.
