by April Scheinoha
Reporter
The second time was the charm for Pennington County. At its meeting Tuesday, June 27, the Pennington County Board approved a bid for bridge maintenance.
Quality Spray Foam LLC had the only bid of $376,821.06 after the county sought bids a second time. The engineer’s estimate was $384,541.
Quality Spray Foam will complete work near Long’s bridge, the River Valley bridge, the Highlanding bridge, the Smiley bridge and the Thief River Golf Club bridge. For the first four bridge projects, slopes will be repaired under each bridge, and the asphalt will be replaced up to the bridges. The slope under the south abutment of the Golf Club bridge will be repaired as part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency project. The bridge will also be milled and overlaid.
In May, the county sought bids for the project. However, the lowest bid came in 21.4% over the engineer’s estimate. Two other bids, including a bid from Quality Spray Foam, were presented at that time as well. At that time, Quality Spray Foam’s bid was about $246 million since it had placed the wrong numbers in a section of the bid document.
Given the high bids, commissioners rejected the three bids and then approved seeking bids a second time. The other two bidders chose not to bid a second time.
County Engineer Mike Flaagan updated commissioners on the bid opening for the Pennington County State Aid Highway 7 project. Since the county had missed an advertising deadline, the bid opening has been pushed back a week to Monday, July 24.
Pennington County leaders hope to complete a full depth reclamation/paving project on CSAH 7 between CSAH 17 (commonly referred to as the airport road) and Highway 59. If bids were accepted, the completion date for the project would be Sunday, Oct. 1.