J.P. Mills of consulting firm KGS Group, project manager for the city’s planned primary sanitary sewer trunk upgrade, discusses the bids for the project engineer services at council Monday. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

In the chambers

City selects project engineer for sewer upgrade

Mar 10, 2020 | 8:30 AM

The City of North Battleford is making progress on its planning work for its primary sanitary sewer trunk upgrade.

Council selected the company AECOM Canada Ltd. as the project engineer, at a cost of just over $1 million for engineering design services.

Mayor Ryan Bater said the project will help the city increase the capacity of its sewer systems to accommodate growth, and also to reduce the risk of backups. It will also help reduce basement flooding and the possibility of raw sewage being released in the environment during heavy rainfalls.

“It is a very big infrastructure project in our city,” the mayor said of the total $13.65 million multi-year initiative for the work that will run from behind the Allen Sapp Gallery to the wastewater treatment plant.

“In 2017 that’s when the initial report came to council outlining that we had a capacity issue with our sewer systems, especially during peak flooding events, or large rain[fall] events, that we are at risk for backups,” Bater said of the importance for the project. “We were advised we needed to increase our capacity.”

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The project was approved under the New Building Canada Fund program that provides support for infrastructure projects, with funding split amongst the province, federal government and the municipality, each sharing 1/3 of the cost.

“We’re very grateful that this was approved, and that the Province of Saskatchewan and the Government of Canada are working with us on this project,” the mayor said.

Bater said with an estimated cost of just over $1 million in the proposal from AECOM for engineering design services, the bid came in within budget.

J.P. Mills of engineering consulting firm KGS Group, the project manager for the sanitary sewer twinning project, also gave an update to council.

He said a total of six firms submitted bids for the proposal. KGS Group recommended the project engineering be awarded to AECOM Canada Ltd., based on the firm’s score on a points-basis rating system covering a number of categories, for the sum of about $1.027 million.

Now that AECOM has been awarded the contract as the project engineer, the parties will next need to come together for further discussions.

“The next step now is for our project manager to meet with our team, and the project engineer to start talking about the project itself, and setting out the scope and deliverables,” Bater said.

No formal timelines have been set for the project yet.

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow