A $41.3 million bid to construct the 17-mile pipeline for the Black Creek Water Resource Development Project was nearly $20 million under engineers’ cost estimates.
The St. Johns River Water Management District-supervised project will divert up to 10 million gallons daily from the creek during wet-weather, high-flow periods. The water will be pumped through a 17-mile pipeline before eventually discharging into Alligator Creek. Alligator Creek flows into Lake Brooklyn, a recharge point for the Upper Floridan Aquifer.
The winning bid to build the pipeline was from DBE Utility Services for $38.8 million. The proposal also includes a $1 million supplemental work allowance to cover unforeseen circumstances during construction and a $1.5 million ductile iron pipe escalation clause, bringing the total bid to $41.3 million.
The district’s director of projects, Dale Jenkins, told water management district governing board members during their Sept. 13 meeting that when engineers estimated the cost of the pipeline last Spring, they forecasted a cost of nearly $60 million, almost 50% more than the actual winning bid.
Jenkins told board members that Russia invaded Ukraine just before the engineers completed their cost estimate. Because Russia is the world’s leading producer of pig iron and Ukraine is the Number 3 exporter of the metal, iron markets switched from pig iron to scrap iron, and prices for the replacement metal skyrocketed. Jenkins said that since that time, prices for the material have stabilized, and bids from the contractors, which ranged from $38.8 million to $46.5 million, reflected the lower material costs.
Jenkins also said the iron pipe will be lined with concrete to prevent any interaction between the water and the pipe.
In July, the board approved a separate agreement to construct the project’s pumps and intake apparatus at the intersection of the creek’s south prong and State Road 16, near Clay County’s animal shelter.
Jenkins said the final section of the project, a water treatment system at the southern end of the pipeline, is still being designed. He added that once the design is complete and a bid is finalized for the treatment system, work for the pumps and intake, pipeline and treatment system will occur simultaneously.
“The idea is for the pump station, the pipeline and the treatment system all to kind of come together at the same time,” he said, “so hopefully, if everything goes according to plan, we can hit the switch in about two years from now.”
He said most of the 17-mile, 30-inch pipe will be laid within Florida Department of Transportation right of way and will be laid using traditional open-cut construction, with the exception of the jack-and-bore method under State Roads 16 and 21. DBE will also utilize directional drilling under two creeks that lie along the route.
Construction on the project is set to begin on Feb. 23, 2023, and should be complete by September 2024.
The board also approved an amendment to its agreement with Clay County that relates to the project. In 2017, the county granted the district an easement for the construction of the intake structure on county property. In exchange, the district agreed to build a kayak launch and parking area within the easement on the south side of State Road 16. The amendment, which the county requested, moves the recreational amenities to the north side of the highway and adds a walking trail from the kayak launch to the parking area of the county’s animal shelter. The amendment also extends the construction timeline for the recreational amenities.
