$1.9M design contract for water system approved

For more than a year, the city of Sherman has focused its efforts and resources on expanding its water resources in anticipation of future growth. The City Council continued this trend Monday when it approved a new $1.9 million professional services contract with Garver, LLC for designs of proposed expansions to water pumping and treatment capacity

These projects, when developed, could lead to a major increase in the city’s ability to transmit water throughout the system, with capacity expected to grow to about 45 million gallons a day. The designs were one of several water system projects that were approved during Monday night’s meeting.

“Due to our major industrial and large developments occurring all over the city, we basically need to increase capacity out here at the water treatment plant,” engineering director Wayne Lee said.

The first set of designs would include drawings of expansions to the water treatment plant aimed at increasing its treatment capacity by about 5 million gallons per day from a daily capacity of 10-15 million gallons.

The second aspect of the contract will include designs for an expansion of the city’s pumping station capacity, bringing it to about 25 million gallons per day of capacity.

The third and final portion of the project will involve an analysis of the entire water treatment plant for designs and ideas on how to incorporate a second, 30 million gallon facility in the existing plant, effectively modernizing operations. In total, this would bring the plant’s daily capacity to about 45 million gallons. City Council member Juston Dobbs

City Council member Juston Dobbs noted the price tag of the project as he asked if city officials negotiate and choose firms based on price. City Manager Robby Hefton said professional services agreements are based on qualifications first and foremost, with the price following. While other types of contracts can be based on the lowest bidder, these kinds of agreements are based solely on the qualifications from the applying firm.