Ephrata council awards Basin Street contract

EPHRATA — Granite Construction of Moses Lake was awarded the contract for a project to replace water lines on Basin Street in Ephrata. Ephrata City Council members accepted the $2,622,932.28 bid at the regular council meeting Wednesday.

The contract and notice to proceed will be on the council’s April 18 agenda. The contractor can go to work anytime after the contract is awarded.

The 3.9-mile project will extend from Oasis Park to Northeast Eighth Avenue, right around DK’s restaurant, about 18,000 feet of 12-inch water main. Some sections of the cast-iron line date back to the 1950s, while other sections, some made of wood, are almost as old as the town itself.

The project will require traffic detours and temporary water shutoffs along the route. When the water project is completed, the Washington Department of Transportation plans to repave the street.

The water project has been on the city’s to-do list for two years, a long-running saga that has occasionally assumed the proportions of a soap opera.

The bulk of the project funding is provided through the state’s Drinking Water Revolving Loan fund; originally it was scheduled for summer 2017. The money was included in the state’s capital budget, which was caught up in a dispute in the legislature over a Washington Supreme Court ruling and water rights.

The council awarded a contract in 2017, but voted to release the company, Scout Lake Construction, from the contract at its March 7 meeting. Owners of Scout Lake Construction said they couldn’t start the project until August.

In other business, it was announced the annual Basin Summer Sounds music festival has been canceled for 2018.

The festival is sponsored by the Ephrata Chamber of Commerce. Chamber board member Traci Bennett said attendance has been declining the last few years.

In addition, planning, preparation and actually putting on the festival are a lot of work and take a lot of time, Bennett said. The festival depends on a group of longtime volunteers, and they’re getting older, she said. For 2018, “we just didn’t have the volunteers."

The Chamber will reassess the festival for 2019, she said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.