North Judson’s wastewater project is expanding slightly. The town council approved a pair of change orders last week.
One officially adds upgrades to the chemical feed disinfection system to the project. Town Superintendent Joe Leszek told council members that the work is long overdue. “All of our head units in that chlorine and sulfur room are out of date,” he explained. “A lot of them, they don’t even have repair parts anymore for them, so we’re literally just on borrowed time, and starting April 1, as soon as disinfection season starts, if that system’s not up and running 24 hours a day, we’re in trouble.”
Living Waters has offered to do the work for just over $13,000, but the change order will end up being closer to $16,000, due to the markup from Commonwealth Engineers. Commonwealth representative Sarah Prizio explained that extra cost includes a one-year warranty covering both parts and labor. Going through Commonwealth also allows the town to use project financing for the work, rather than the town’s regular budget.
As for the other change order, Prizio said a section of pipe that was set to be removed and replaced was listed as a 15-inch pipe, but when crews began digging, it turned out to be 18 inches. That added more than $2,600 to the project cost.
Prizio noted that covering the change orders shouldn’t be a problem. There’s over $100,000 in the project’s contingency budget, not including another $115,000 that will be freed up by removing paving work from the scope of the project in order to be funded separately. Prizio said the project remains on schedule, and the town council approved a series of pay applications for bills that have come in so far.
