COST ESTIMATES FAR EXCEED ESTIMATES
By Gregory J. Lamoureux
Enosburg Falls: The Village of Enosburg is a bit of a conundrum. The project to renovate a 70-year-old turbine has run aground on financial concerns.
According to Village Manager, Jonathan Elwell, the lowest bid to renovate the aging turbine came in about 50% over budget.
That lowest bidder, Kingsbury Companies out of Waitsfield, came in significantly lower than the second or third place bidders, so rebidding the project may not be a good alternative, although it is an option, according to Elwell.
In March voters opted to invest $2.1 million into the Village generating facility. That money, in part, was intended to upgrade the turbine that generates much of the area’s power.
The winning bid came in at $2,940,200. That’s $840,000 over the current budget that was approved by voters.
Some of that money was also intended to “bricks and mortar” (literally) according to Elwell.
The building that houses one of the village’s two turbines is in direct need or maintenance. Some of the bricks need to repoint, replacing, the roof, and various smaller projects need to be done to the building to keep it safe and up to date.
Another part of the plan was to upgrade the aging infrastructure that moves the power from the turbine into the grid.
According to Elwell, the way the power is currently processed at the facility is inefficient.
Some or all of the plan may have to be scrapped, though, to come up with a bid that is within budget for the project.
The Village has asked their contracted engineer, The Turner Group, who initially came up with the estimate for budgeting purposes, to work with the winning bidder to see where the project could see cost savings.
Elwell said that they intend to still complete all the essentials of the bid to maintain the legality of the vote to fund the project, but if they can’t, they would have to put the plan out to contractors to bid on it again.
According to Elwell, the initial bid would have called for a five blade turbine, which is an upgrade from the current four blade turbine now.
That five blade turbine, though it is move efficient, it also cost much more.
A four blade turbine is an option, though for the trustees to approve that it may have to go back to voters, who had previously approved an upgrade to a five blade turbine.
A third option is to purchase a five blade turbine that is still more efficient than a four blade turbine but does not cost quite as much as the five blade turbine that was initially planned when the vote occurred.
The project was intended to be completed by the beginning of September 2016.
“That obviously won’t be the case,” said Elwell.
Another problematic issue came up in the planning stage of this project, the lead time it would take just to get the turbine.
According to Kingsbury, the turbine would most likely take as much as 60 weeks to be delivered from the time the order is placed.
Elwell did not know how an estimate could have been established that so far outweighs the actual bids.
“Believe me, we’ve asked them. Maybe you can get more from them than we can,” said Elwell.
According to Elwell, the Village has a contract of $198,000 with Turner Group for their aspect of estimating and planning the project.
According to Elwell, the overall health of the damn is okay.
“It’s not going to fall down overnight,” Elwell said, “but we haven’t put any significant money into the facility since 2002.”
If the village exhausts all of their options and still can’t get the project cost below $2.1 million, the voters would have to approve any additional money used.
