By: Tim Kays
At their December 15 meeting, the Bryan Board of Public Affairs addressed Resolution #51-2020, a measure authorizing a multi-faceted Change Order #1 for the construction of the Industrial Drive Substation Project.
“Before I get into those,” said Power Production Superintendent James Coressel, “…real quickly I would like to say that the Industrial Substation is operational, and can be used at this moment.”
“However, because of a couple change orders we’re going to kind of delay that for a few weeks, just to make it easier to get these change orders completed as quick as possible. It is operational; we do have the transformer on.We do have the phase checked out to one of the feeders, so it could be brought online relatively quickly.”
Detailing the four parts of the change order, Coressel said, “The first change order was to add to two inch conduits for communications. That’s to bring the fiber in…a change order of $2,940. The next one was feeder conductors were slightly too small. We went from 3/0 to 250 mcm (thousands of circular mils – a gauge measurement for large wire), which is basically a 50 amp increase or a 20% increase in the capabilities of the neutral.”
“That was the change order for $3,212. Then what we noticed was on the secondary of the transformer, there was only two 750 mcm coming in which gave it basically a 1,000 amp capacity. The maximum that transformer can stick out in amperage is a little over 1,200, almost 1,300 amps.”
“That would require a third 750 to be in there. GPD (engineering firm) came back with a change order of $38,364, however thanks to Nate’s negotiating skills, we didn’t feel as a team that we should accept that whole amount, even though if we would have originally got that third one put in there, we would have had to pay for that much.”
“So Nate agreed to pay for the cabling addition, which I think is a great way to look at it because we would have had to incur that cost in the beginning anyways. So that change order is for $7,054, which brings us up to having to be able to have the whole capacity of that transformer, if it would be needed in the future, and this is the most cost effective time to do that.”
“The last one is we extended the completion date or would like to, to March 31. Some of that is due to the weather. The transformer originally came in about a month late. Some of the other things are we just don’t know what the availability of this cable will be… trying to get fiber communications for the sub and for the project…is having trouble getting parts.”
“So we’re not sure when this cable will be able to get here.” Once the parts arrive, Coressel said that he wants the work to be done with a focus on quality and not speed. “We want to make sure that we gave them plenty of time so that we did not rush them to make mistakes,” he said.
“The only thing I’d like to add is just that they anticipate basically the middle of January being done,” added Director of Utilities Nathan Gardner. “They just need that extra time in case of lead time for materials.”
“They anticipate having it done in the middle of January, that’s their goal. They want it done just as fast as we do, but we gave them that extra time, so we didn’t have to keep coming back and saying, ‘Hey, there was a delay in materials,’ so I thought we would just give them a little extra time. We aren’t pressed; it’s functional as is.”
Board member James Salsbury added, “I was going to say it seems to me that it makes perfect sense to wire that for the maximum load of the transformer, and I doubt that we’ll ever do it any cheaper than we will right now. And I’d also like to say that I’m impressed that you’re ready to feed a circuit out of that substation already; that’s good.”
“Thanks for your negotiating skills,” added Board President Dick Long; “…you’ve saved us about $21,000, Nate. Good job.” The Board unanimously approved the additional costs totaling $13,206 as laid out in the Change Order Resolution, and the additional requested time.
The Board also moved to approve the promotion of Chad Fitzenrider to the position of Water Treatment Operator III, from his prior post of Water Operator II. “Chad can successfully perform the essential functions and duties of this reclassification,” said Water Superintendent Derek Schultz. He has met all EPA requirements, and he has successfully passed and obtained his Ohio EPA Class III Water Supply Certification.”
BMU Operations Manager Dawn Fitzcharles noted, “From what I understand the Ohio EPA Class III test is incredibly hard and takes a lot of studying, preparation and hard work, so I just wanted to say congratulations to Chad.”
Tim can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com
