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With the municipal election just around the corner, Rehoboth Beach’s mayoral candidates quickly squared off over wastewater disposal alternatives.
At the Monday, July 7 workshop, the commissioners got an update on the progress of requests for proposals (RFP) that have been sent out to outside vendors of ocean outfall and spray irrigation.
Mayor Sam Cooper said the city should have the RFP ready to go out soon.
“Once we get the information back from the potential vendors we have to put that in the mix with information our engineers developed on ocean outfall and what we can get from the county. It may not be easy to extract from them the information. We need to assess the information involved in teaming up with them,” Cooper said.
Commissioner Paul Kuhns asked Cooper if the RFP was going out for ocean outfall vendors as well, to which Cooper replied no. When Kuhns said an RFP could be put out for ocean outfall, Cooper said the requests would be going out to contractors for an estimated cost.
“It’s not really an RFP. It’s giving them a set of parameters and getting their take on the cost of it,” Cooper said.
Also, Cooper said, the RFP process would be different from those of the spray irrigation vendors because in the case of ocean outfall, the city would own and operate the pipe. He also said the permitting process would also prevent the city from doing a true RFP on the outfall.
“What I’m trying to do is, as much as possible, within the realm of possibility, try to compare apples to apples. It’s two different methods, no question about it,” Kuhns said.
“But the big things when you talk to people in town are: What is the cost up front? How long is it going to take? What is it going to cost each user? Those are some of the parameters at the top of the chart.”
The commissioners reviewed the 2005 report by engineers Sterns and Wheler before moving on to discuss a request for proposals seeking an outside firm to give the city a better idea the cost of an ocean outfall or land-based application project.
The city has several options before it: an ocean outfall project funded by the city, a spray irrigation project with Sussex County or spray irrigation through private companies Artesian Water Co. or Tidewater Utilities.
Commissioner Stan Mills, who gave the presentation, said originally, land application was not an option because the cost of the land was too expensive. Since the report, new options have become available. In the report, the proposed ocean outfall pipe would be located about a mile offshore and would run from the city’s treatment plant, down State Road, crossing Columbia and Henlopen avenues and out to the ocean. The 2004 cost, for the city to do the project alone, was estimated at $36 million.
The city had been waiting for county officials to decide whether to join up in a regional solution. Sussex County Council voted on June 3 not to go forward with an outfall. County officials are willing to join with the city on a spray-irrigation project but that solution comes at a greater cost to the city.
Kuhns and Cooper are squaring off in the city’s mayoral election this year and in prior debates, with all factors being equal, Kuhns said he would favor spray irrigation, while Cooper said he would favor ocean outfall.
The commissioners will continue discussion of the city’s wastewater disposal alternatives at their next meeting, 7 p.m., Monday, July 21, with Dr. William Ullman of the University of Delaware College of Marine and Earth Studies.
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