Explanation
1. BACKGROUND
This Ordinance authorizes the Director of Public Utilities to modify and increase the professional engineering services contract with MS Consultants, Inc., for the Southerly Stormwater and Floodplain Improvements project, CIP 650377-100000, in an amount up to $4,000,000.00 to pay for the first phase of detailed design services.
The City’s wastewater treatment plants require continual development and upgrades in order to keep processes and equipment up-to-date, in compliance, and running well. All site re-development requires compliance with the City of Columbus Stormwater and Drainage Manual as well as the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) Stormwater general permit and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requirements. This project will develop and implement the stormwater and floodplain masterplan for the Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant to achieve and maintain compliance. The Department of Public Utilities (DPU) is planning large scale developments at the facility which will require expansion of the current footprint into the floodplain. This will require significant permitting and environmental mitigation and involves the design and permitting of a levee.
The first phase of this contract performed preliminary engineering and analyzed several alternatives for meeting these regulations while accounting for any unmitigated historical impacts as well as future development. Findings of the initial phase are that a levee is required to accommodate future expansion necessary for an expected increase in flows from new development in the area.
Due to the size and complexity of the project the detailed design will be split into two phases, which are being called Step 2a and Step 2b. Step 2a is the upcoming phase of work and will perform field investigations and develop technical memoranda (TM) required to fully define the environmental permitting, develop proposed environmental mitigation plans, and progress the d...
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