TO: City Council DATE: February 09, 2026 DEPARTMENT: Administration Department
PREPARED BY: Alfredo Huerta, Assistant City Engineer PRESENTER: Alfredo Huerta, Assistant City Engineer AGENDA TITLE:
Receive Report and Consider Adopting City Council Resolution Approving Contract Amendment with HDR Engineering, Inc. for the Water Treatment Plant Rehabilitation Project for Bid and Construction Services, Project No. WTR-00017, Increasing the Amount of the Design Contract with HDR Engineering, Inc., and Authorizing the City Manager to Execute Same (Not To Exceed $600,288; Account 615-6006-0731)
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends approving the contract amendment with HDR Engineering, Inc. for the increase in engineering construction scope, increasing the amount of the contract to $600,288, and authorizing the City Manager to Execute the same.
BACKGROUND
The Water Treatment Plant (WTP) was originally built in 1958. There was a major treatment process upgrade at the plant in 1986 which made the nominal plant capacity 2.2 MGD. The upgrade replaced the old treatment process with two packaged Trident® filter treatment units (FTUs). Since then the treatment process had mostly remained unchanged. The last major improvement project at the plant was constructed in 2004 and modified the raw water storage ponds to construct backwash water storage ponds. The current Water Treatment Plant Rehabilitation project completed construction in November 2025, and consisted of rehabilitating and improving the filter treatment units and buildings surrounding them, rehabilitating water storage tank #2, improvements to raw water storage and backwash ponds, and improving the piping system at the water treatment plant. These improvements are for the benefit of the city, with the expected life of the project being 50 years.
This project was made possible by the California State Water Resources Control Board which provided the funding necessary to carry out the construction phase of this project. In total, the City was awarded $12,216,480 which was used for construction and construction management costs. Construction began in May of 2024 and was completed in November of 2025. Throughout the project, the City worked closely with the design engineer and contract team to carry out the project in a timely fashion, meeting the required funding schedule.
DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
In December 2020, the Fort Bragg City Council approved a Professional Services Agreement (PSA) with HDR to provide design and engineering for the project. In their original contract for this project, bid and construction services were not included. Being that HDR was the engineer of record, the Fort Bragg City Council approved a contract amendment with HDR in October of 2023 to provide bid and construction services, increasing their contract amount to $576,513.
The project went out to bid at the end of 2023 with the help of HDR, with construction starting in March of 2023. Soon after the project started, the project team determined that additional funding would be necessary because of changes in scope and additional rehabilitation required on one of our water tanks. The original funding from the State Water Board was increased from about $11,099,000 to $12,216,000. This in turn also increased the project duration. Because of changes in the project scope and the overall duration, additional engineering construction services are needed to close out the project, including record drawings from the engineer.
FISCAL IMPACT/FUNDING SOURCE
The project budget has been consolidated and there is a balance of available funds from the State Water Board that can be used to cover the cost of the additional engineering services. The calculation below shows the beginning funding amount, total construction contract amount, and total construction management (CM) amount.
Budget $ 12,216,480.00
Construction Total - $ 11,361,904.42
CM Total - $ 820,780.00
Balance $ 33,795.58
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS:
The Project is exempt under the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) and Title 14, the California Code of Regulations (“CEQA Guidelines”), Sections 15301 Existing Facilities & 15304 Minor alterations to land. These exemptions are appropriate because the project involved negligible expansion of use. The alterations on the preexisting facilities were mainly repair and maintenance and did not expand the footprint of the site or surrounding area.
STRATEGIC PLAN/COUNCIL PRIORITIES/GENERAL PLAN CONSISTENCY Completion of this project is consistent with the goal of improving the resiliency of the City’s water system and the goals of the grant that will fund this contract.
ALTERNATIVES:
Direct Staff to reject the amendment request
ATTACHMENTS:
Resolution
HDR Amendment Scope
NOTIFICATION:
HDR Engineering, Inc.; [email protected]
AGENDA ITEM NO. 8D
CITY COUNCIL STAFF REPORT