Red Deer city council will decide on Monday on whether to invest more dollars into installing a secondary water trunk along 39th Street.
Administration has asked for an additional $350,000 to bring the budget up to $1.82 million. The extra dollars would come from the water offsite reserve.
The approved budget had been $1.47 million.
“The budget variance is largely due to higher than expected material cost and mobilization/traffic control costs,” says an Engineering Services report.
Engineering Services issued a tender for the directional drilling portion of this project in October.
Only one contractor submitted a bid and the bid amount exceeded the funds available from the currently approved budget.
The project involves directional drilling 1.5 km of water pipe from Springbett Drive to Maxwell Avenue.
Directional drilling technology will allow the water trunk to be installed along 39th Street without the need to dig up the road for the entire 1.5 km. Instead, excavation will be limited to roughly seven separate and relatively small locations along 39th Street.
Environmental Services is in the process of completing work on the west and east ends of the project for the new water trunk to tie into the city’s distribution system. Work is finished in the vicinity of Springbett Drive and now work is underway on the east end by Maxwell Avenue.
It’s hoped that the project will be done by spring 2012 so it doesn’t affect the commuter bike pilot program in the area. Plans are to have a bike lane route on the road along 39th Street from 30th Avenue to Spruce Drive.