Berlin Town Council is pictured in a file photo.

By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

Berlin’s largest well, located at Powellton Avenue, is set to undergo replacement. The Town Council unanimously approved awarding the project work to East Coast Contracting for approximately $409,955.

The motion to proceed with the well upgrade was agreed upon at the municipality’s March 10 Mayor and Council meeting. Officials said they hope the replacement will be completed by August or September. The bid of $409,955 is under the project’s budgeted amount of nearly $450,000.

Water Resources Director Jamey Latchum said that after factoring in the cost of a new AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure), the initiative will have a contingency of about $20,000 to $25,000. Leftover American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and general water use funds are being used to finance the work.

The scope of the project includes demolition work of the current well building and the construction of a new facility, including chemical storage tanks, chemical feed systems, interior and exterior water main installation, interior and exterior electrical, control, and mechanical work, interior water and sewer plumbing, exterior yard hydrants, and more to ensure the upgrades are up to current standards.

Latchum noted the building is decades old, and these repairs have been a long time coming. The director added the town and his team have been trying to get the project funded for the past eight years, but issues like budget constraints have always halted the project before it could get done.

The rebuild will also help the town’s water operations align with a planned switch from powder chemicals to liquid chemicals. “We’ve put enough Band-Aids on [the well building], and the band aids need to be taken off and torn down and rebuilt,” he said.

The well is the largest in town. In comparison, the facility – known as well one — pumps around 900 gallons a minute, while well two pumps about 300 gallons a minute and well three roughly 600 gallons a minute. As such, Latchum maintained that well one would be as active as possible during this process to ensure the town had no water supply gaps. Staff also ensured that the equipment at wells two and three would guarantee Berlin’s water utilities remained on track as a contingency.

“I don’t want anyone to worry,” Latchum said. “We have done a lot of work to our wells to be able to take this building down … We made sure all of our ducks were in a row to ensure we could work on this well.”

The motion to move forward with awarding the project to East Coast Contracting was passed unanimously by the Berlin Town Council.