Whitefish City Council has approved an amendment to its contract with Anderson-Montgomery Consulting Engineers for engineering services related to planned upgrades to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

The amount of the amendment is $966,825 for all engineering services up through and including project bidding for a new plant. A preliminary engineering report released by Anderson-Montgomery this fall has recommended replacement of the city of Whitefish’s existing wastewater treatment plant with a $17.5 million new treatment plant that would comply with state requirements.

Public Works Director Craig Workman said this is the seventh amendment to the contract with Anderson-Montgomery and would provide engineering services up through awarding bids for the project. The scope of work does not include construction management of the project, which will be negotiated later, he noted.

“During the original contract award in 2012 Council acknowledged that this would be a complex, long term project, involving many different aspects of planning, design, grant writing, permitting procedures and negotiations with various entities for several years into the future,” Workman said. “For this reason, the contract was awarded with the anticipation of individual amendments being negotiated as the project evolved and took shape.”

The key pieces of the contract include, the creation of a preliminary design report to establish design criteria to complete preliminary layout and equipment selection, preparation of documents to facilitate the purchase of key equipment components required for the new facility, final design services for all the necessary engineering services for equipment and plant design, and preparation for and review of bids for the project.

DEQ in 2012 issued the city of Whitefish an administrative order on consent as the result of several violations of the city’s wastewater discharge permit. Last year the order was updated to incorporate a compliance plan detailing the completion dates that must be met in order to bring the treatment plant up to the new standards by November 2021.

Anderson-Montgomery Consulting Engineers was hired by the city to conduct an assessment of the area, an evaluation of the existing treatment plant and analysis of treatment alternatives.

The city estimates the cost for the planned sequencing batch reactor system at a total of $17.5 million. This includes construction, engineering, administration costs and a 15 percent contingency. The sequencing batch reactor is an activated sludge process designed to treat wastewater in batches.

The city has been working for years to prepare for the construction of a new wastewater treatment pant. The anticipated project timeline, is site survey in December, geotechnical investigation in January 2017, preliminary design report in February, final draft equipment documents in April, equipment procurement and award in summer 2017, final draft project documents in February 2018 and project bidding in spring 2018.