By Caleb Stento

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Last Wednesday another phase of Ouray's water tank project reached completion. The mainline and valve system for the new tank was hooked up and charged, and according to City Administrator Patrick Rondinelli, things went very well.

"It was as flawless as one could hope," Rondinelli said. "Triad did an excellent job planning out how exactly they were going to do it."

The water tank project's final completion date has been pushed back to Sept. 10. At that time both the tanks and transmission lines to town should be fully functional. This date has slipped from a July completion date which, considering the size and scope of the project, is a respectable timeframe.

One of the delays occurred during an initial phase of the project. The City of Ouray was responsible for excavation at the new tank construction site. The area where the tank was to be erected did not get sufficiently excavated, requiring a second removal effort to create enough space for the new tank.
"The initial calculations were wrong and we only excavated half of what needed to be done," Rondinelli said.

According to Rondinelli, this added approximately two weeks to the project timeline and additional costs totaling approximately $82,000 for the extra material, manpower and equipment usage. However, Rondinelli added, this will not affect the project's bottom line. The city is still within the initial budgeted estimate for the overall project cost.

Rondinelli said that the city initially wanted to get started last fall but was forced to wait until this spring. Other setbacks came from trenching delays because of the rock conditions and the inability to blast on CR 361, where originally slated, due to the proximity of the existing waterline.

"The city doesn't have any mapping showing where the existing water main goes," Rondinelli said. "We thought the main was on the inside of the road and so the design was to put the new transmission line on the outside of the road. As soon as they started digging, they found the existing main on the outside of the road. It was too close and they couldn't afford to blast it."

Rondinelli praised the job done so far by Triad Western Contractors. "Burt Ramsey, the supervisor, is very good at making adjustments in the field based on conditions each day. We've been very pleased with their progress overall."