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YOUNGSTOWN -- The city's board of control approved two major contracts with the same Youngstown company for work to design and then remove three low-head dams in the Mahoning River and for a pump station addition that distributes water to most of Austintown and Canfield townships.
The board of control voted 2-0 Thursday in favor of both contracts with Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Co., a Youngstown company that does extensive business with the city. The board includes Mayor Derrick McDowell, Finance Director Kyle Miasek and Law Director Adam Buente. Buente was absent from Thursday's meeting.
Marucci & Gaffney submitted the low bid of $7,749,054 for the pump station work. It was about $1.2 million under the city's estimate.
The next lowest bid from A.P. O'Horo of Liberty was $8,921,645. The three other bids ranged from $9,608,518.20 to $10,231,310.
The city is borrowing the money for the project from an Ohio Water Development Authority loan to be paid back over 20 years.
The contract is for two main waterlines to connect a planned upgrade to the Webb Road pump station and the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District waterline feed as well as build a road for the lines.
The city is waiting for EFI-Solutions Inc. of Centralia, Illinois, to finish building the new pump station off-site. EFI-Solution is getting $2,914,839 to build the pump station with the city paying the company out of water funds.
This second pump station at Webb Road is being built because the current one needs repairs. That station distributes water to most of Austintown and Canfield townships through four pipes, which are corroding. This work will add two more pipes.
Also Thursday, the board of control approved a $743,192 contract with Marucci & Gaffney to design a project to remove three low-head dams in the Mahoning River to improve water quality and clean contaminated sediment behind them.
Marucci & Gaffney was chosen to design the project and subsequently do the work from among three companies that sought the work through a request for proposal process, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works.
A three-person committee selected Marucci & Gaffney for the work, Shasho said. Also, submitting proposals were River Reach Construction of Barberton and Rudzik Excavating of Struthers.
City council on May 20 authorized the board to spend up to $6.12 million to remove the dams.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is providing $3.5 million for the work from its Water Resource Sponsor Program with the rest coming from a state fund that uses LTV Steel settlement money to clean up the river.
The dams are located by Crescent, Center and Marshall streets.
The project is being done through a "design-build" process, meaning Marucci & Gaffney will do the design and, after that phase is essentially done, it would do the actual project, Shasho said. The cost of doing the work will be determined after the designs are reviewed, Shasho said.
"We hire the most qualified and then you negotiate a price," Shasho said. "You can move on to someone else if the price doesn't work, but you rarely do that."
The engineering work is more complicated than many projects because the sediment has to be tested, hydraulic engineering is needed as well as scuba divers, Shasho said.
"It's a lot of upfront work," Shasho said.
The design phase will start in a few weeks with the work to remove the dams beginning in April 2027 and expected to be finished in June 2028, Shasho said.