Hatfield DPW Director Phil Genovese recommended E.J. Prescott as the bidder for the Main Street culvert project.
Photo credit: Hatfield Community TV
HATFIELD — Nearly a week after the public approved the borrowing of money for the project, the Hatfield Select Board officially awarded the bid for the Main Street Cowbridge culvert repair to E.J. Prescott during its Sept. 17 meeting.
According to Phil Genovese, Hatfield’s DPW director, the Springfield pipe supplier was the sole bidder for the project.
“[They] gave a good price,” Genovese said. “[They’re] in that business to do that type of work, to slip line that line and put the liner in it.”
Although the bid from E.J. Prescott came in at $242,000, the public voted to borrow $375,000 for the culvert project at a special town meeting. According to Genovese, this is because the DPW is also doing some in-house work.
“We have to provide some material,” Genovese said. “We have to provide the excavator to keep the cost up, because without that you would have been prevailing wage on that end.”
During the special meeting on Sept. 11, Select Board Chair Diana Szynal told the public inside the Hatfield Elementary School auditorium that part of Main Street had sunk in earlier this summer, which is why the immediate restoration of the 12-foot culvert under Main Street, just north of the wastewater treatment plant, is so necessary.
“There was a sinkhole in Main Street and that was because this culvert is starting to fail,” said Szynal. “This culvert goes from the swampy area over by the wastewater treatment plant, under the road, over to the Cowbridge Road area.”
According to Szynal, the Select Board met with state Sen. Jo Comerford (D-Northampton) and state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa (D-Northampton) to weigh their options on how to fix the issue. Ultimately, they decided that sleeving the culvert would be the best option because it costs much less to do, and it can be done quickly with public safety in mind.
The other option the town considered was going through grant programs with the state, but Szynal said that route would have taken much longer and cost much more. The town argued that the restoration needs to happen as soon as possible.
“This is a really serious situation if that culvert fails,” Szynal said. “It’s very old. We obviously can’t have a failure of Main Street and a long-term closure of Main Street or the safety issues that could happen with a collapse.”
The original article that was presented to the public included a contingency that the bonded amount the town agrees to would be voted to be exempt from Proposition 2½ at a future election, but the town found that this contingency was not necessary.
“We’ve checked with bond council, and he has opined that notwithstanding that that language was in the warrant article, a motion that does not include the debt exclusion contingency would be perfectly fine,” said Town Counsel Tom Mullen during the Sept. 11 meeting.
The public who attended the meeting were overwhelmingly in favor of the borrowing for the project.
During the Select Board meeting on Sept. 17, Genovese said the town should be able to finish the culvert restoration during this construction season, as long as the project receives approval through the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the town’s Conservation Commission.
According to Genovese, the Conservation Commission is supposed to meet in October, but the town will look to see if they can meet sooner to get the project going.
