EPHRATA — A Moses Lake company is the apparent low bidder in the next phase of Ephrata’s water and street project.

Advanced Excavation proposed to replace water pipes and pave roads in the southwest section of the city for $1.8 million. City staff is reviewing the company’s bid, which is about $300,000 less than the next closest bid.

“What we’re doing at this point is really alerting you that there is an apparent low and that staff is beginning the process of evaluation, background check, reference check, all the state licensing checks that we do before we ask you to award the contract,” City Administrator Wes Crago said.

The goal of the project is to replace aging pipes and roads. Many of these pipes are more than 60 years old and only designed to last 10 to 15 years, according to city records. Prior to the start of the project, the city lost about 24 percent of its water through leaks.

In response to the problem the city received a $6.6 million Public Works Trust Fund loan from the state and contributed $1 million to the project. The city spent about $5.26 million so far.

The engineers estimated the third phase would cost the city $2.2 million. The scope of the project is similar to the section completed last year, Crago said.

“We had roughly 26, 27 contractors pick up plans. We had about 13 bring in bids,” he said. “The engineer’s estimate you’ll see falls just about right in the middle … (There is) a good spread of contractors, mostly from this area.”

Crago anticipates having the work done before the next city council meeting on Feb. 17, he said.

Public Works Director Bill Sangster said the items on the bids hadn’t changed in price much from last year.

“There really wasn’t any, ‘Wow, that’s why they’re really low,” he said. “It looked like the meters were a little more expensive, the pipe price on the 8-inch pipe was pretty low and, of course, the asphalt price is down a little bit from last year, so there’s a lot of reasons why they could be there.”