Brookfield has updated its contracts for lead service line replacement to include additional lead lines that weren’t discovered until work was already under way.
Village trustees approved the four change orders at their Jan. 13 meeting. One change order corresponds to Brookfield’s contract with Suburban General Construction, Inc., a LaGrange Park-based firm, for water main replacements last year, which included a small number of lead service line replacements.
The other three change orders are for Brookfield’s three contracts with Five Star Energy Services, a firm based in Waukesha, Wisconsin, which handled the majority of the village’s lead line replacements last year.
At the meeting, Village Engineer Derek Treichel explained the need for about $920,000 in extra work that was not originally planned.
“The next four items are one change order each for each of these projects for additional lead water services that were observed out in the field,” he told trustees before they approved the first change order. “In general, when they are excavating a pit, it’s usually about seven foot by seven foot. They’ve encountered another tap on the water main, previously identified as copper, but it shows up as lead, so we’re taking care of those and adding those as we go.”
The change order for the contract with Suburban General Contruction is worth about $150,000, while the three for Five Star Energy Services are worth increasing amounts: about $145,000, roughly $266,000 and nearly $360,000 for a total of about $771,000.
Treichel said the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, which lent Brookfield about $7 million without interest last year for lead service line replacements, had authorized about $700,000 in extra no-interest loan funding for the unforeseen work. That extra funding, alongside 3% contingency funding included with the IEPA’s initial loan, will cover all of the costs for the extra work, he said.
Treichel said the change orders were based on the total projected extra work through the end of the lead service line replacements rather than “where we’re at today” with the work that has already been completed. So far, he said, about 3% — “21 out of 700” — of lines that had been identified as copper pipes were actually made mostly with lead and needed to be replaced.
Village President Michael Garvey said approving the change orders is the best way for Brookfield to handle the unexpected additional lead lines.
“The benefit of doing it this way is the contractor is holding the original excellent price that we got,” he said. “Because we have the funding available, we’ll be able to do this without starting over, opening the ground and doing it again.”
When trustees approved the original contracts in May, Suburban General Construction and Five Star Energy Services were the lowest bidders for each contract they won. Suburban General’s bid for the water main replacement came in at about $5.1 million, which was about $350,000 lower than the engineer’s estimate. Five Star bid about $7.3 million across its three contracts, which were estimated at a total price of $10.1 million altogether.
