The City of Kingston has awarded the highest dollar value contract in municipal history to Herve’ Pomerleau Inc. for the upgrade of its Ravensview Water Pollution Control plant.
Infrastructure
Kingston awards huge Ravensview project
KINGSTON
The City of Kingston has awarded the highest dollar value contract in municipal history to Herve’ Pomerleau Inc. for the upgrade of its Ravensview Water Pollution Control plant.
Pomerleau beat out three competitors with its $82.5 million bid for the main phase of the project budgeted at $95 million, said Jim Keech, CEO of Utilities Kingston. Bids ranged to $97 million. Total project value is $115 million.
Rising costs for fuel and raw materials and a busy construction season had city officials “nervous” about the ultimate cost of the project, Keech said.
“We were extremely pleased with the price.”
Kingston started planning three years ago for the massive upgrade of its outdated pollution control plant.
When complete, the Ravensview rebuild will return “much better quality” water to Lake Ontario, Keech said.
Construction will also expand the plant’s capacity by 75 per cent.
With an unprecedented construction boom on the horizon, the plant’s ability to handle current and future wastewater treatment was in question, Keech said.
“We became fairly concerned about being able to have the upgrades in place before the plant became overloaded,” Keech said. “We’re fairly confident we’ll get there.”
Kingston will be installing a high-tech secondary treatment system new to Canada. The European filter system by John Meunier Inc. is the first in Canada and the largest in North America, Keech said.
Meunier installed a pilot system in Kingston during the tender process and Keech said the city has been very pleased with the results.
The Ravensview project will also include construction of a new co-generation system that captures methane and coverts it to electricity to help power the plant.
A new biosolid storage facility and installation of a fourth digester will also help minimize environmental impacts and clean waste-water to higher degree, Keech said.
Federal and provincial governments have contributed $25 million each toward the Ravensview upgrade. Construction will begin by the end of the month.
Kingston has made significant investments in its aging sewer and water systems in recent years in an attempt to stem sewage overflows.
In heavy rains, the city is routinely forced to bypass Ravensview with the result that millions of litres of raw sewage have been dumped into Lake Ontario.
New holding tanks have also been installed along the lakeshore.
Recent Comments
comments for this post are closed