June 9, 2011
Town to re-tender
sludge contract
by Vance Gutzman
Tenders are turning out to be tough for Deep River council.
In a controversial move, the town has decided to re-tender its contract
for the extraction, haulage and disposal of treated sludge, from its
sewage treatment plant, just two weeks after it received a pair of bids
on its original tender for the same job.
As reported in last week's NRT, the town sent out a request for
submissions earlier this spring for the biosolids contract, and two
bids were received by the May 6 deadline.
The town's public works manager, Khizar Hayat, had recommended council
award the contract to P&G Pumping, at a price of $21.75 per cubic
metre, despite the fact the other bidder on the job, Thomas Pumping
Service, had submitted a lower price of $13 per cubic metre,
Hayat based his recommendation on an inherited set of quote selection
criteria - a point system based on six factors in which P&G Pumping
out-scored Thomas Pumping by a margin of 83.18 to 65.
That criteria system came up for a great deal of discussion, and
scrutiny, at the May 18 council meeting, with Councillor Ron Desrochers
being its most vocal critic.
"It's crap, basically," he said at the time, claiming, among other
things, that the selection criteria were weighted in favour of response
times, and he also questioned the references submitted by the two
bidders.
And, while other members of council also felt at the time the selection
criteria may have left something to be desired, they also said that
wasn't the bidders' problem, but the town's.
"If I was the successful bidder, I would hold you to this contract,"
Mayor David Thompson told council at the May 18 meeting.
"How can we say we're going to change the evaluation process to get a
better result? I don't think that's very kosher," Councillor Terry
Myers added.
The previous contract the town had, with P&G Pumping, expired a
year ago, on May 31, 2010.
Time and staff limitations at the time led to a decision to extend that
existing contract for a six month period.
Since then, the town has been storing its sludge in three Imhoff tanks,
which are each capable of holding 300 cubic metres of the biosolids.
Two of those tanks were full, however, when council first discussed the
issue in May, and sludge was being diverted to a third tank, and that
one was expected to fill up quicker than the other two, as water
consumption increases in the late spring and summer months.
At its May 18 meeting, council directed that a bylaw to award the
contract come forward for debate at its June 1 meeting.
The open session of that meeting, held last week, came and went without
a bylaw coming forth, with council choosing to go into closed session
to discuss it instead.
When council resumed its work in open session, it passed the following
resolution:
"Be it resolved that council has chosen not to accept either submission
under the Expression of Interest and Quotation for the sludge haulage
contract under the provision that 'the lowest or any quote will not
necessarily be accepted', and further that direction be given to staff
to issue a tender for the sludge haulage contract subject to council's
approval."
"After careful consideration, council has determined that the current
procurement process for sludge hauling has fundamental weaknesses,"
Mayor Thompson stated the next day.
"In essence, there is a disconnect between the required statement of
work and the evaluation criteria.
“In fairness to all bidders, and to protect the interests of our
ratepayers, council has decided to suspend the current procurement
process and to re-tender the requirement with a more clearly defined
set of evaluation criteria."
Thompson expanded on his statement in a phone interview.
"We felt the most prudent way to proceed was to start over," the mayor
said.
In the interim, Thompson said, the existing contractor (P&G
Pumping) has been working on site at the sewage treatment plant, at his
existing rate.
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