Hawaii County next month could approve a bid for contractors to begin the long-awaited overhaul of the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The aging facility, located in Keaukaha east of the Hilo International Airport, has been slated for a major rehabilitation for years — a 2022 study found that 86% of the facility is in need of restoration — but the project’s high cost has hindered progress.
In 2023, the county estimated the project would cost more than $100 million.
The project has gone out to bid before. Last year, only one contractor — Nan Inc. — submitted a bid, proposing to complete the job for $177 million, which the county rejected.
Since then, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has drafted an agreement with the county detailing a series of improvements it must make to its wastewater systems by 2035 or face penalties. That agreement determined that the Hilo facility — along with two other sewage treatment plants on the island — are no longer operating within EPA standards.
The agreement also required the county to put a construction proposal out to bid for the Hilo plant by the end of September. The county did so at the end of April.
By the time that bid closed in August, the county had received three bids from contractors, albeit much pricier ones than last year’s. Nan Inc. once again has the lowest bid, at $337 million, with Hensel Phelps Construction proposing a $397 million price tag and Kiewit Infrastructure West submitting a $423 million proposal.
But Department of Environmental Management Director Ramzi Mansour emphasized the county isn’t getting soaked.
“It’s not the same project,” Mansour said. “We repackaged the whole project after the last bid. … It started as a three-phase project, and now it’s two phases.”
Mansour said the county rejected the original $177 million bid because it was “crazy high.” The new bids, based on the current scope of the redesigned project, are more reasonable and competitive, he said.
“It’s like if somebody says he’ll redo your roof for $60 million but then he comes back and says he’ll redo your whole house for $70 million,” Mansour said. “You’d pick the whole house.”
The county has not yet selected any of the three bids, because the County Council must first vote to authorize releasing funds for the project. Council committees are expected to hear related bills on Oct. 1.
While the original three-phase plan would have rehabilitated the facility’s core functions in its first phase, subsequent phases would add or improve the plant’s processes, and would have been subject to an environmental assessment.
The Nan Inc. bid was only for the first phase of the project, and was 70% over the engineers’ cost estimate.
“Proceeding with this costly Phase 1 bid would have led to higher long-term costs for remaining phases,” explained Mansour’s secretary, Peter Sur, in an email, adding that the bid was canceled “because it was not in the best interest of the county.”
The new repackaged bid has been restructured to fold the previous second phase into the first, while plans for a new treatment process are now the focus of the new phase two.
The new bids have come in at about 30% over the engineers’ estimate.
“By restructuring and redesigning all major components of the Hilo facility in one project, we have proven the cost saving to the taxpayers based on the results of the prior bid and the most recent one, which gave us more for our money,” Sur said in an email. “This will be one of the largest projects the county has undertaken in decades, enhancing the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Facility’s ability to treat wastewater more environmentally and efficiently, and will be beneficial to the taxpayers as it will improve the quality of life to the surrounding communities.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.