Water and sewer control upgrades pact okayed

By Dana Casadei

Innovated Energy Controls was awarded the contract for Bloomfield Township’s water and sewer control system upgrade by the board of trustees on Monday, June 8.

The company, based in Howell, came in with the lowest bid for the project at $747,350 with a 10 percent contingency. This was far below the other two bids, which were $982,909 and $1,394,600.

Funding for the water and sewer control system upgrades were included in this year’s township budget.

“The system we’re currently using is about 15 years old and incredibly outdated,” said Paul Horen, township public works superintendent. 

Across Bloomfield Township, the water and sewer department operates and maintains nine pump stations, nine PRV (pressure reducing valves) vaults, five master meter/PRV vaults, one booster station and one storage facility.

Each pump station uses a Multi-smart Pump Station Controller to monitor sewer levels and interface with a Motorola ACE3600 RTU (remote terminal unit) that provides a communications connection to the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.

Those vaults are essential and communicate to the department of public works (DPW) garage via Motorola radios, which help monitor 24/7 the sewer level, water pressure and alert staff if anything has gone wrong. 

“This is basically the heartbeat of the water and sewer department.” Horen said. 

But because the system is so outdated the multi-smart controls have been discontinued, as have the Motorola units used for communications between the vaults and DPW, making it difficult to find replacements when need be. 

According to Horen, the last time they had to get a Motorola radio replaced they struggled to find one locally and had to get one off of eBay. 

This project will upgrade all nine of the township’s sanitary pump stations and water vaults with varying degrees of electrical equipment replacement and SCADA upgrades.

Horen said there will be no disruption to residents when this project begins.

“The only disruption that would happen would be if this doesn’t happen,” he said. 

All three bids were reviewed by Hubbell, Roth & Clark (HRC) – the township’s consulting engineering firm. And even though the township has not worked with Innovated Energy Controls before, HRC has an Ann Arbor pump station project and found their performance to be satisfactory.

Both HRC and DPW recommended the township move forward with Innovated Energy Controls and the contract.

The vote to award the contract passed 5-1 with trustee Mark Antakli as the evening’s lone nay vote. Trustee Valerie Murray was not in attendance at the meeting.