Sanitary sewer rehabilitation contract award

By Dana Casadei

Pipeline Management Company was awarded the 2026 sanitary sewer rehabilitation program at the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, August 24, but not before some heated words were exchanged between trustees. 

Right as a motion was about to be made for a vote, trustee Mark Antakli began to ask questions about who was funding the project.

Corey Almas, P.E., director of engineering & environmental services, explained that it was funded through the township’s budgeting process.

Seemingly not a good enough answer, Antakli continued with his line of questions, switching over to where and when this project was requested because he couldn’t find it in any of the documentation for the water and sewer rate setting meetings. 

“There’s no request to do this project during any of the documentation that Noah (Mehalski, director of public works) showed, so I’m asking how this was identified in the rate setting meetings,” Antakli said. 

Antakli then asked Almas to pull up the rate setting meetings online to show where it had been requested. Almas said he wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for that information, explaining that they worked with the department of public works (DPW) on this. 

“I think it’s in the budget and we’ll find the information for you, Mark. We don’t have it in front of us today, unfortunately,” said supervisor Mike McCready. “And if you would have called or emailed me before the meeting, I would have been happy to get it for you.”

As far as the project goes the township received three bids, with the Pipeline Management Company coming in at the lowest with $1,702,157 to perform the rehabilitation project, part of a multiple year effort to inspect, repair and rehabilitate portions of Bloomfield Township’s sanitary sewer in order to reduce inflow and infiltration. The elimination of inflow and infiltration into the sanitary sewer system helps reduce township costs to the Oakland County Water Resource Commissioner for collection and treatment.

For this year’s project, the focus areas to reduce inflow and infiltration will be on the east side of Bloomfield Township in sections 12, 13, 24 and 25. This area is primarily between Squirrel Road and Adams Road and south of Westview Road. 

Split into two divisions, division 1 of the project will consist of rehabilitating sanitary sewers manholes with structural deficiencies or inflow and infiltration, based on inspections. The preliminary televising was performed by the DPW in the Fox Hills subdivision, and manhole inspections by Hubbell, Roth & Clark (HRC), Bloomfield Township’s engineering consultant. 

Sanitary sewer runs with structural deficiencies or inflow and infiltration will be rehabilitated for division 2 as well. 

Other proposed work within the sanitary sewer rehabilitation includes full length sewer lining, spot sewer lining, joint grouting and sealing laterals. For the sanitary manhole rehabilitation there will be manhole lining and joint grouting, too.

The approval of this project came with some provisions. The first provision is that Bloomfield Township’s engineering & environmental services department (EESD) will have the authority to approve up to a ten percent increase to the contract amount based on quantities needed to complete the project or conditions discovered in the field, which would need to be confirmed by both the EESD and HRC. If the project conditions or requested quantities result in a contract increase that is above 10 percent but less than 15 percent, the EESD would need to obtain approval from the township supervisor, and if costs are projected to increase by 15 percent of more, the EESD would need to gain approval from the board of trustees before issuing any further approval.

This project has been done in part under an administrative consent order and final order of abatement by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy (EGLE).

Bloomfield Township worked with Pipeline Management Company previously in 2022 as part of Bloomfield Township’s stormwater, asset management, and wastewater grant through the state of Michigan. This project consisted of work on a televising project and a sanitary sewer cleaning. Hubbell, Roth & Clark has also worked with the Wixom-based company on several projects in neighboring communities. 

Pipeline Management Company was awarded the contract in a 6-1 vote, with Antakli voting against it.