City looks into second opinion on waste water plant project

In workshop session Monday afternoon, Glencoe City Council met with Ryan Norman of DeWild Grant Reckert and Associates Company (DGR Engineering) to get a second opinion of the city’s proposed $20 million to $23 million wastewater treatment plant project.
Norman was asked to clarify the question about how a treatment plant DGR designed in Sheldon, Iowa, a community about the size of Glencoe, could come in at half the price of Glencoe’s renovation/expansion project. And Sheldon’s plant was new, compared to Glencoe’s plans that repair and expand its older plant.
What Norman told the council members seemed to affirm the decision to proceed with the treatment plant renovations and expansion. But no formal decision was made Monday.
Norman told the council members he was not sure he “wanted to stick my nose into this,” but several Glencoe council members pressed him to help explain the differences.
Norman said there were concerns expressed over the “stark differences” in cost estimates for the Glencoe plans, designed by engineers from Short Elliott Hendrickson (SEH), compared to Sheldon’s new plant that came in at $9.5 million.

Read the full story in the July 25 edition of The McLeod County Chronicle.