Marengo water table stalls pool painting

MARENGO — The locals were right. Engineering an inground pool with Marengo’s water table requires a different approach than in other communities.

“We’re nearing completion,” said City Administrator Karla Marck. “It had been ahead of schedule.

“The real obstacle … right now is painting,” said Marck. “In order for it to be painted, it has to be dry.”

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Iowa County had been in a drought, but spring rains this year have brought the water table up, closer to normal levels.

“That mean there is water around and underground around the basin of the pool,” Marck said.

The most recent change order for the pool upsizes the sump pumps in the manhole for $1,000.

“We upgraded the pumps because of the experience as they’ve been building this pool. They’ve realized some of the uniqueness to the Marengo water table,” Marck said.

“This has been a discussion and a debate all along.” The engineers told the city how things should work, and the locals told the engineers how thing really work in Marengo.

The last rain showed the engineers that the locals were right, Marck said.

Contractors are waiting for the new pumps. “That should keep up with the water table,” Marck said. Then contractors can get the painting done.

Playground equipment was to be delivered this week, and the slide is coming sometime in July, said Marck.

“We actually are coming in right on budget,” said Marck. No major changes should change that. “We’re far enough into the project that all the big stuff is completed,” she said.

The city contracted with Portzen Construction in Dubuque for $4.39 million for the project.

The city decreased the cost of the project as it could with value engineering — changes that saved money without changing the project fundamentally.

In December, the city approved a change order that reduced the cost of the project by $71,100. The change order included small savings such as changing the surge tank lid to fiberglass I-bar grating at a savings of $4,000, and changing stainless steel tank lids in the mechanical area to aluminum, saving $1,500.

It also included larger savings, such as changing the bathhouse masonry for $36,000 in savings and changing the siding in the mechanical building and bathhouse to LP siding, a savings of $20,000.

In March, the city approved other cost-saving changes recommended by JEO Consulting Group, the engineer on the project.

JEO recommended deleting the storm sewer to the north and west side of the pool and draining to the grass area, reducing the cost by $27,475. The change order also deleted the shrinkage reducing admixture, saving another $7,590.

Deleting the chemical tanks, tubing, fittings and labor to install it saved $10,460.

The change order also added some cost. It upsized the discharge piping from the sump pumps to the storm manhole from three inches to four inches and the drain from the pool piping to the deep manhole from two inches to six inches — costing $1,714 — and added a sump pump in the mechanical building, another $4,917.

The change order still resulted in a net savings of $38,894

A change approved last month added play structure installation to the scope of Portzen’s work at a cost of $9,000, replaced the single drinking fountain with bi-level dual fountain for $3,080 and changed the size of a gate on the south fence line at a cost of $1,339.

But the city saved $2,181 by deleting a meter bypass that Public Works Director Lonnie Altenhofen called “one of those oddball things we weren’t sure why it was there.”

The contract price incorporating the most recent change order was $4.29 million, according to the change order estimate.