The Village of Northport approved a bid contract of $14,800 to Kal Excavating to address 4th Street drain modifications permitted by EGLE (the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy).
Dyer noted in his manager’s report that the village received three responses to their Request for Proposal (RFP) from Kal Excavating, Popp Excavating, and Team Elmers. Popp’s project estimate was the most expensive at $25,957, and Team Elmer’s was the second highest bid for $15,400.
The village chose to go with the lowest bidder, Kal, to complete a number of tasks on the drainage ditch including removing the existing culvert on the north side of 4th Street and installing an 18” storm sewer and 48” catch basin. The Kal crew will also restore the disturbed area, patch the asphalt, and import and spread fill sand. To fund the infrastructure improvement project, the village authorized a budget transfer of $15,000 from the Local Streets Fund into the Capital Improvement Fund, leaving a balance of $44,615.
Discussions regarding drainage issues between members of the public that live on 4th Street and the village council have been ongoing for years. EGLE classifies the open portion of the drainage system as a handsoff “stream that provides natural aquatic biologic filtration prior to discharge into Grand Traverse Bay.” Despite the project not being the “ideal solution,” it is all that is currently permitted by EGLE.
“Anytime you get a flow of water, you’re going to get debris and silt with it, so this will just help prevent that from getting farther down the system,” said Jim Dyer, Northport Village Manager. “Ultimately it all ends up in the bay… at the (drain) outlet in the bay, there’s a collection of sand and silt, and this will help prevent that from occurring. It’s an improvement, and the issue is we’re not really permitted to enclose the entire drain, which would be our preference, but we can’t get a permit to do that… Right now it’s an open ditch, it’s not a pipe that is enclosed or covered with dirt. It’s an open drain and that’s preferred by EGLE because it provides that aquatic plant filtration.”
With the action to approve the project bid completed, modification work on the 4th Street drain is expected to be scheduled after September 1.
