Bid for Brightwater tunneling project $20 million below estimate

King County's wastewater utility ratepayers got encouraging news last week when bids on a contract to build the central portion of a 13-mile conveyance pipeline for the Brightwater project came in significantly lower than the engineers' estimate.

“We had five bidders, which is extremely competitive given the complexity of the project,” said Don Theiler, Director of the Wastewater Treatment Division. “At this point, we've received bids for the majority of Brightwater tunnel work and so far they've all been under budget. This is great news as we work hard to keep this project on budget.”

The apparent low bid submitted by Vinci/Parsons RCI/Frontier-Kemper, a Joint Venture, based in Montreal, Canada, was $209.7 million compared to King County's estimate of $229.9 million. The remaining bids ranged between $216.9 and $257.6 million.

The scope of work will include building two tunnels, one from Kenmore to the North Creek Business Park in Bothell and another from Kenmore to Ballinger Way Northeast in Shoreline. The combined length of the tunnels will be about 32,0000 feet.

The selected contractor will dig the 16-foot-diameter tunnels using two larges machines that can work long distances underground without disrupting the surface.

The contractor will also excavate two deep shafts, one near the intersection of 80th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 192nd street in Kenmore and another along Ballinger Way Northeast in Shoreline, for launching and removing the tunnel-boring machines. The contractor will install six pipes in the tunnel ranging from 14 inches to 126 inches in diameter along with two fiber-optic cables to monitor Brightwater facilities. The tunnel will be filled with concrete after those installations. In addition, the contractor will trench a smaller 4,200-foot-long pipeline from the Kenmore portal to connect the new Brightwater pipes to the existing sewer system.

Theiler said that this competitive bid comes on top of design efforts that substantially lowered project costs from previous estimates. “We undertook a major effort to reduce the cost of this project before the bids were solicited,” said Theiler. “A value engineering review panel made several cost-saving recommendations, including combining a separate influent and effluent tunnel into a single tunnel, which reduced project costs by $30 million.”

The county and its consultants will thoroughly review the bidder's qualifications before awarding the contract. Construction is scheduled to begin as early as July 2006.

The county has already selected Jacobs Civil to provide construction management services for the conveyance facilities. MWH/Jacobs Associates is designing the system as a joint venture, and CDM conducted geotechnical work as part of tunnel design.

Brightwater tunnel construction has been underway since March on the east segment of the conveyance system. Kenny/Shea/Traylor was awarded the contract to build the Brightwater tunnel from North Creek to the treatment plant site on Route 9 in December.

More information about the Brightwater project, including the status of construction-related contracts, is available on the project Web site at http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wtd/brightwater/index.htm.

People enjoy clean water and a healthy environment because of King County's wastewater treatment program. The county's Wastewater Treatment Division protects public health and water quality by serving 17 cities, 17 local sewer utilities and more than 1.4 million residents in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Formerly called Metro, the regional clean-water agency now operated by King County has been preventing water pollution for more than 40 years.