TOP STORY-UPDATED: Miami Beach Sewer Bids Are Unexpectedly High, Implications Not Yet Fully Understood

This Time Around, Miami Beach is Flush with Sewer Bids … But Costs Aren’t Going Down

Editor’s Note: This article was updated with information from the CT DEEP spokesman.

OLD LYME–Costs continue to climb as bids on Tuesday came back unexpectedly high for the Miami Beach portion of a $70 million project to bring sewers to the shoreline. 

Miami Beach Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) Chairman Scott Boulanger in a Wednesday phone interview with LymeLine said bids from four general contracting firms need to be vetted and distilled by project engineers with the Fuss & O’Neill firm before he can fully understand the implications for the already backed-up project. 

A failed bid process earlier this year yielded no responses, according to Boulanger.  

This time around, the bids to oversee the project ranged from the Ludlow, Mass.-based Baltazar Contractors $13.62 million to $21.97 million from C.J. Fucci Construction, Inc. of New Haven. Engineers from Fuss & O’Neill in cost estimates earlier this month predicted the project would amount to about $8.4 million. 

The second lowest bid was from Colonna Concrete and Asphalt Paving of Woodbridge for $17.69 million, followed by Tolland-based Genovesi Construction at $19.9 million. 

“The numbers came in a lot higher than anticipated,” Boulanger said. 

He said officials thought the cost would actually go down from the engineers’ estimates because of a redesign incorporated before the project went out to bid in June. The change involves using a single pipe rather than the more expensive double walled pipe, a move that town documents show was endorsed by the state Department of Health and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP.)

The project is intended to connect Miami Beach residents to a sewer system spanning multiple beach communities. The association’s internal construction expenses are on top of its $5.03 million portion of a shared pump station and force main serving Old Colony Beach Association, Old Lyme Shores Beach Association and the town-owned Sound View Beach. 

Engineering and legal fees brought the total cost for the Miami Beach project to $21.9 million, based on the early August estimates. Federal and state funding reduced the impact on residents to $12.5 million. 

All four entities are under pressure from the CT DEEP to resolve the pollution issues that state officials say are emanating from local shores. 

The three private beach associations are under a formal consent order from the CT DEEP requiring them to fix the pollution issue, while the town is participating voluntarily under the threat of a similar mandate. 

It is unclear what will happen to the overall project if any of the participating communities drop out because they can’t afford to proceed. That leaves attention now on Miami Beach as officials try to gauge the viability of a project that will cost residents of the affected areas thousands of dollars per year over two decades. 

Members of the Old Lyme Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance are expected later this month to decide if another bonding request for the Sound View portion of the project should go to voters at a public referendum in September. The Old Lyme WPCA is seeking a total of $17.1 million, though federal and state grants cut by half the amount that Sound View users will have to finance to cover the project.

An informational session on the Sound View project is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 26 at Lyme-Old Lyme High School. 

Selectmen have held off on a vote amid concerns about the affordability of the project for the Sound View ratepayers. Residents there have long asked for more specific information about how much they will have to shell out as the municipal bond is repaid over 20 years and have questioned the data underlying the state’s contention that sewers are necessary to resolve the potential for pollution in the area.

Affordability

Over at Miami Beach, the typical resident was already looking at total annual payments of $3,154 before the bids came back higher than expected, according to engineers’ estimates.

Connecticut DEEP Project Engineer Carlos Esguerra last year said the agency sets the amount that residents can reasonably be expected to spend at 2% of the town’s median household income (MHI), which he identified at the time as $122,000. That equated to $2,440 a year.

Cinami has said the state does not consider annual operations and maintenance fees as part of its affordability calculation when it comes to installing a municipal system. 

CT DEEP Spokesman James Fowler on Thursday said there is no federal or state definition of affordability when it comes to preserving and protecting water quality. 

“Similarly, there is no definition of unaffordability that allows a community to maintain a source or potential source of pollution,” he said.  

Fowler attributed the 2% median household income “guidepost” to historic U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidance, which he said municipalities and water pollution control authorities have used to ensure public sewer infrastructure projects are financially manageable for rate payers.  

“If a project’s costs were estimated to exceed 2% MHI, a town or sewer authority would explore additional options to reduce financial impact like splitting a project into phases, deferring work not associated with pollution, the pursuit of additional funding, and/or requesting a longer project schedule to achieve compliance, based on an enforceable schedule of compliance steps,” he said. 

He emphasized that exceeding the 2% threshold “does not mean that communities don’t have to address identified pollution.”

Viable Solution?

Boulanger said he told members of the Miami Beach Association Board of Governors at a regularly scheduled Tuesday evening meeting that it’s critical to have a full understanding of the bid responses before making any decisions. He said he hopes to speak with the project engineers and obtain a spreadsheet with a breakdown of the results by Labor Day. 

“And then it becomes, you know, whether or not it’s continually a viable solution for the area,” he said. 

Asked if he has a sense which way the board members are leaning when it comes to the viability of the project, he said they’re still relying on him to collect the information that will tell them how much the project will cost all the homeowners in the beach association. 

“They’re listening to me on what I feel,” he said. “And I don’t have a feeling.” 

Ultimately, he said it will come down to the engineering firm’s interpretation of the results and how members of the Miami Beach Association choose to proceed. 

He said the association will also be discussing “viability and options” with state DEEP officials as well.

Boulanger, who has led the Miami Beach WPCA throughout the years-long effort to bring sewers to the area, said he has strived through multiple referenda and presentations to provide members with as much information as he can so they can make an educated decision.

“It doesn’t matter what I want to do personally,” he said. “It’s what does the community want to do?”

Old Lyme Shores has not yet gone out to bid for its portion of the project. Cinami has said the association was ordered by the CT DEEP to award a contract by Oct. 10. 

Part of the Old Lyme WPCA’s urgency to hold a referendum next month stems from contractor quotes for the Sound View project that will expire in October, which could lead to more price increases if officials have to go back out to bid.

Wastewater planning documents that first laid the groundwork for the project go back to at least 2012. The consent order from the state requiring the private beach associations to resolve their pollution issues was issued in 2018.