BIGHORN – A $5.1 million flood mitigation project is moving forward after the MD of Bighorn awarded the Exshaw Creek project to Devcon Inc. on Tuesday (March 12).
“It was very satisfying to see the bids come in from a number of companies ... the contract has been awarded and the tender for the successful candidate has been analyzed by our engineers and found to be sufficient to task,” Dene Cooper, Reeve of MD of Bighorn said after a Tuesday morning council meeting.
The tender closed on March 6 with 10 contractors submitting bids and seven applications accepted because they were found fully compliant. The highest bid was $10 million.
The Exshaw flood mitigation project has been in the works since the 2013 flood with a completion date slated for 2020.
The initial estimate of the project was $10.6 million with major components including building a debris retention structure, channel excavation, construction of a sediment pond, weir and spillway, installation of channel armouring and installation of a pedestrian bridge.
A total of $8.9 million was funded for the project including the Federal government kicking in $1.9 million, a $3.3 million commitment from the province and an additional $3.7 million committed from Lafarge in material and land.
The bidding process was divided into two portions, schedule A in charge of construction of the debris flood mitigation and schedule B, in charge of design, supply and installation of the pedestrian bridge and bridge abutments.
While Devcon Inc. was not the lowest bidder on schedule A, the company did bid lower for construction costs for schedule B making the Calgary-based contractor the lowest overall bid for $5,167,836 (excluding GST).
Devcon Inc. also worked with the MD of Bighorn previously successfully completing the 2016 construction for the Jura Creek flood mitigation project.
Construction for the Exshaw flood mitigation is scheduled to start April 1 with the majority of major construction set to be complete by the end of October.
