Saturday, September 28, 2002

Northwest BF may soon get sewer lines

Bruce Warren News-Bulletin Staff Writer; bwarren@news-bulletin.com

Bosque Farms The reality of saying "goodbye, septic tank" and "hello, sewer system" is getting closer for residents of the northwest section of Bosque Farms.

The village council unanimously decided Thursday in a special meeting to approve a four-phase bid by the engineering firm of Molzen-Corbin and Associates of Albuquerque to plan for installation of sewer lines in the northwest section of Bosque Farms.

The council was presented a report by Utilities Director Kurt Moffatt that outlined construction costs for the system at $512,273, if done by an outside contractor or $306,245 if done "in-house."

If the sewer project were handled by the village, it was explained in an earlier meeting, non-village temporary workers would be required to complete the work, which was not considered the best alternative. Moffatt expressed concerns that the village take bids on the sewer project now when the price of pipe could easily rise later.

"One of the biggest costs in this project is PVC pipe," Moffatt explained to the council. "I don't know of any contractor who can hold his price over a period of time."

Currently, the village installs its own sewer lines, and about 65 percent of the project has been completed, Moffatt said in an interview after Thursday's meeting. The new lines, which will be two inches in diameter on side streets and four inches in diameter on the main roads, would be installed off Lillie Drive and the Country Lane area off the North Loop, in addition to some other areas, according to Moffatt.

"These people are currently not on sewer," Moffatt said. "They have septic tanks. We should finish the sewer by 2003."

In other business, the council decided to stay within budget in approving the partial paving of two village roads as part of a co-operative paving program with the New Mexico State Highway and Transportation Department. Murray Loop, off Esperanza, and Winchester Drive, off South Bosque Farms Loop, will both be partially paved.

J.R. Hale Contracting Com-pany came in as the low bidder on the paving at $93,391, which is $23,391 more than the $73,000 that the village has available for the project. Hale's bid also accounted for funds from the State Highway Depart-ment.

"Both roads are bad, and Winchester is the worse of the two," said Mayor Roger Baldwin.

The council unanimously approved partial paving of the two roads and regretted that more money is not available to complete the project. Earlier in the meeting, Councilor David Linthicum expressed concern that the village has already overspent on some items in the budget.

"I would really like to see us adhere to the line items in the budget," Linthicum said. "It concerns me that we're already overspent on some of those line items."

After some discussion about a future building for the fire and police departments, the village decided to move that issue up to No. 1 on its Infrastructure Capital Improvements Plan (ICIP). Construction of a wastewater line and grinder pump installation moved to No. 2 on the list. Water quality was set for No. 3 and road construction at No. 4. A new library addition at No. 5 and construction of a recreation facility, at sixth place, remained in the same order on the list.

E-mail this story Printer-friendly version