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Scituate holds off on seawall repair bid award

E-mail|Link|Comments () Posted October 22, 2009 09:32 AM

By L.E. Crowley, Town Correspondent

Scituate Public Works department officials are reviewing two bids received for seawall repairs, however, because of complicated needs, awarding the work is on hold until next month.
Town Engineer Kevin Cafferty said two bids were opened about two weeks ago.

He said two companies, SN Lynch Corp. and MAS Building and Bridge of Franklin submitted bids, but because the town has included five alternates to the base bid, choosing the lowest bid is more complicated than usual.

“It’s tricky,” Cafferty said.

Public Works Director Al Bangert, said these bids cover specific work from a storm several years ago that took out sections to seawall. The town has many miles of seawalls extending from North Scituate, to Humarock to the Cohasset border.

Bangert said FEMA officials reviewed the seawalls and identified sections that were damaged by the storm and rejected others.

“It’s very specific. Damage has to be related to that particular storm,” Bangert said. “We have residents who will have their walls repaired and their neighbors next door or down the street who aren’t included,” he said.

Officials did not say how much money FEMA has allotted to repair the seawalls, saying it is flexible and that in the past FEMA has paid up to 75 percent.

However, Bangert said bids came in higher than estimated.

Cafferty said officials can choose which work it wants to complete depending on how much money is available.

He said he could not give the total amount of footage of seawall that would repaired.

“There could be a 5-foot section in one place, a 20-foot section in another, one section might need the top replaced, another might need something else,” Cafferty said.

SN Lynch Corp. submitted a base bid of $104,550. The alternate bids are: $166,590; $62,825; $129,075; $203,950 and $306,000.

MAS Building and Bridge’s base bid is $132,955. The alternate bids are $145,180; $60,050; $112,100; $125,345; $592,300.

Cafferty and Bangert are expected to give Selectmen a recommendation next month.