GOSHEN — County officials have cut a final check and set an official completion date for a sewer collection system built north of Nappanee.
The Elkhart County Board of Commissioners on Monday accepted a certificate of substantial completion for the Foraker, Southwest and Tecumseh Acres wastewater project, which was undertaken by H&G Underground Utilities LLC. The collection system gathers wastewater from around 136 homes and businesses in the three communities and sends it to Nappanee for treatment.
The certificate marks the effective end date for construction, which was delayed by five weeks due to weather.
“We’re very pleased to note that the Foraker-Southwest-Tecumseh Acres wastewater project has continued to progress as planned,” said county attorney Steve Olsen. “As they have worked through punch list items, we have held off on a certificate of substantial completion while they work through those. The certificate of substantial completion is officially dated Aug. 6, 2024. We have verified with our engineers and our contractors on-site that that is the appropriate date for substantial completion.”
The board approved the final change order, which reflects a total contract price of $9.49 million. Olsen said the final price comes with cost increases totaling $29,263 but a net decrease of $1.34 million overall.
“I am very pleased to inform the commissioners and the public that this project has worked very well and we have been able to save funds as a result of the significant efforts by the commissioners, the contractors and the engineers on site,” he said. “In connection with this, you’ll also see the increase in the substantial completion date and ready for final payment date of an additional 36 days, which was made available in order to accommodate the weather needs and other circumstances involved and in order to account for the substantial savings we received.”
The board voted to accept the maintenance bond for the project, which is meant to provide financial backing for anything that falls outside of the warranty, according to Olsen. And they approved the final pay application of $529,347 with H&G Utilities, which Olsen said must be paid before the end of the year in order to receive grant reimbursement.
The project was funded using a portion of the county’s $40 million American Rescue Plan allotment as well as an Indiana State Water Infrastructure Funds grant. Commissioner Suzie Weirick noted that it was important to close out the grants by the end of the fiscal year to avoid paying future audit expenses.
“The final pay application is important in order to meet grant requirements. This project was primarily funded through grant requirements – exclusively funded, I should say – through two grants, one being a state grant and one being a federal grant,” Olsen said. “Since we were utilizing grant funds, we need to make sure that we get this approved prior to year-end so that check can be appropriately cut and we can seek reimbursement from the state and federal government for the same.”
The wastewater collection system for the Foraker, Southwest and Tecumseh Acres communities was built to address the problem of illicit discharge into nearby creeks from more than 100 septic systems. The county wanted to act before the state decided to intervene based on the results of water quality testing in the three communities.
Testing from waterways in Foraker, Southwest and Tecumseh showed E. coli levels which were above the water quality standard and higher than results from a decade ago. Tests indicated the presence of pharmaceuticals in all three waterways as well.
The full body contact limit for E. coli is 235 colony forming units per 100 milliliters of water. Recent tests showed between 41,000 and 1.5 million cfu/100 mL in Weaver Ditch, between 900 and 43,250 cfu/100 mL in Yellow Creek and between 12,000 and 686,700 cfu/100 mL in Haverstick-Darkwood Ditch.
A number of options were weighed in 2017, including building a new treatment plant or replacing all of the septic systems. The estimated cost to build a seven-mile collection system in Foraker and Southwest, which were the two unincorporated areas being considered at the time, was $3.43 million.
No action was taken until a study was commissioned in late 2021 and the project began to gather steam in 2022. H&G Utilities was the only company to submit a construction bid, which was originally $10.8 million.
The Elkhart County Regional Sewer District, which manages the collection system, adopted a monthly rate of $95 per residential equivalent unit. They also passed a ban on the construction of new septic systems within the collection area.