Contract for siphon project protested

COLUMBIA BASIN — A $20 million contract to construct the Weber Branch Siphon and Weber Coulee Siphon to full capacity was twice protested by another bidder who didn’t get the job.

Work on the project didn’t start this year as expected.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C., is currently in the process of issuing a decision and has until Feb. 22, said Terry K. Ford, a contracting officer with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Boise, Idaho, Thursday.

The project was originally awarded to Mowat Construction, of Woodinville, Ford said.

The protesting bidder was BOSS Construction Inc., of Bellingham, which made an initial protest to the Bureau, causing the federal agency to reevaluate the proposal, Ford said.

The company didn’t feel the Bureau evaluated their proposal in accordance to what they said they would do in the solicitation, he said.

“We looked again and reaffirmed our earlier decision,” he explained.

The company protested the award a second time.

The contractor’s protest stopped the project and a new start date is unknown, said Jim Blanchard, special projects officer with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Ephrata office, this week.

“The original contractor expected to be out there working now,” Blanchard said.

“We have 10,000 acre feet of water from Lake Roosevelt, but we can’t deliver any of that south of I-90,” he added. “At least some of that needs to go down there. What we’re doing is building to full capacity.”

There’s currently a 14 foot, 8 inch, concrete cast pipe in the ground now.

“What we’re going to do is build its exact twin next to it,” he explained. “After 50 years in the ground, you won’t be able to tell one from the other. They’ll carry exactly the same amount of water.”

When the area near I-90 was built in 1964, 550 feet of pipe was constructed.

“All we’ll do is connect up each of that,” he said.

Craig Simpson, manager of the East Columbia Irrigation District in Othello, said once completed, the project increases the ability for the district to move water down to I-90, to the Lind Coulee and the waste-way.

“It helps the East District,” he explained. “It makes more water available to a further point on the East Low Canal to where the project isn’t fully developed.”

“We have a number of water service contracts we deliver already. This allows us capacity to deliver more.”

Throughout they years, the district delivered 17,000 acres of water service contracts, he said.

More capacity would be created for more than 15 miles of canal in Grant and Adams counties, he said.