Rehoboth Beach approves budgeted spending for sewage outfall project

Rehoboth Beach commissioners approved roughly $2.7 million in tasks orders for the sewage outfall project Wednesday.

The task orders were approved for all four parts of the project at the commissioners meeting on Sept. 6. It was natural step in the progression of the project, which breaks ground on Oct. 1.

Commissioner Stan Mills said these task orders were planned for.

"I just want to make sure nobody misconstrues these," he said. "These tasks orders were anticipated steps, and they were within the budget."

BACKGROUND: Rehoboth Beach to hold town hall to discuss outfall project

BACKGROUND: Rehoboth Beach awards $37 million to ocean outfall contracts

The outfall project will put treated wastewater into the Atlantic Ocean about a mile east of where vacationers to Rehoboth swim. It was created in response to a court order that the city stop discharging wastewater into the Lewes & Rehoboth Canal near the entrance to Rehoboth Bay.

The section of the project discussed first was the wastewater treatment plant improvement phase, which had a $364,981 price for the task order. 

City leaders focused the bulk of the conversation Wednesday about the wastewater task order, discussing how they differ from change orders. 

Mayor Sam Cooper said the original contract just set the framework for the relationship between the city and GHD, which is the engineering firm in charge of the project.

"It had no actual work in it," Cooper said. "It was just boilerplate as it were, and these needed to be done."

Task order approvals move the project along, allowing engineers to go over shop drawings, approve them and have people in the field inspect the work going on, Cooper said. 

On the other hand, change orders occur when there is an alteration of the plan.  

Mills said he wants the project's change orders to be documented in a similar manner to the city hall project with a running tab cost and ensure somebody is doing record keeping.

City leaders had to respond to some criticism of how change orders were handled for the ballooning cost of the city hall project that ended about $3 million over budget.  

Once the documentation of change orders was implemented, it worked well for the city hall project, Mills said.

Area residents will have their questions answered about the outfall project on Sept. 16 during a town hall meeting at 1 p.m. on the second floor of the Rehoboth Fire Company on Rehoboth Avenue.

There will be a presentation from project engineers and contractors followed by a question and answer session.

Jeff Sturdevant, principal manager of GHD, said the task order records will be kept as a documentation on where contractors stand in terms of pay requests for the entire contract.

Ensuring the prices are broken down and not given as a single lump sum will ensure the commissioners have an understanding of what is being spent and how it is being done, he said.

Sturdevant did say there will be change orders that will be needed to be taken into account. But the budget is already prepared with an allocation of 5 percent of each contract's value for the change orders, he said. 

The vast majority of change orders, too, do not needed be decided on during a 24-hour period, he added. They will have 30 to 60 days to go through the process, so no change order will be unexpected.

The commission then voted unanimously to approve the wastewater task order.

Votes were also taken on the other three change orders without conversation.

• The construction of the ocean outfall project task order at a cost of $1.545 million.
• The force main project task order had a $533,411 price tag.
• The wastewater treatment plant effluent pumping station project task order was $260,494.

All were approved unanimously.

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