Fort Smith Board approves small budget reductions in mandated wastewater work

The Fort Smith Board of Directors closed 2015 by revisiting and approving two previously rejected proposals from Utilities Director Steve Parke at Tuesday night’s (Dec. 15) meeting.

The first authorized an agreement with Hawkins-Weir Engineers for engineering services on wastewater pump station and force main evaluations related to the city’s $480 million consent decree for violations of the Clean Water Act.

On Oct. 6, 2015, the Board advised Parke’s department to undergo a “thorough examination of requirements stated by Section V, Article Three of the Consent Decree,” Parke wrote in a memo to City Directors.

Parke utilized engineering consultants at CDM Smith, who found the Request for Proposal (RFP) and Scope of Services as laid out by Hawkins-Weir to be sufficient, though the firm did identify five specific work items that could be moved to an “as needed” basis, thus reducing the proposal by $180,000 and bringing the overall project down to a total of $1.82 million.

The five items involved limiting property research to available County Tax Assessor records (a reduction of $40,000); reducing the duration of flow monitoring from 90 to 75 days for 14 of the 22 pump stations ($23,000); reducing the number of force main inspections from 12 to 10 ($40,000); reducing testing for corrosive oils to cast iron pipe force mains only ($2,000); and moving to a “checklist approach” for determining whether CD components exist at each of the 22 stations “in lieu of detailed evaluations” ($75,000).

“CD required components” would include existing instrumentation controls, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), primary and alternative power supplies, and lightning strike protection, the firm stated.

In the second proposal, the Board had previously rejected a $198,000 agreement with Morrison-Shipley Engineers on Dec. 1 due to what City Directors felt was a lack of detail regarding construction observation time for Scope of Services that included four lift stations (15, 16, 17, and 23) and two associated sewer lines (stations 17 and 23). Morrison-Shipley provided further details on how the 2,000 billing hours would be spent on the project.

Both proposals passed unanimously.

In another unanimous approval Tuesday, the Board approved a recommendation from the city’s Animal Services Advisory Board making it unlawful “to offer any live animal as an incentive to buy an item, or to offer any live animal as a prize in a contest, raffle, game of chance, or auction,” the ordinance stated, “while providing an exemption for livestock, goldfish, and for any FFA or 4-H related animal activity and for any federally recognized 501(c)(3) organization.”

Tuesday’s meeting was the final meeting or study session of the Board for 2015.