Youngstown approves change orders to wastewater plant project

YOUNGSTOWN

The city’s board of control approved $135,908 in change orders to a project to replace a broken boiler at the wastewater treatment plant.

The project was finished about two months ago by A.P. O’Horo Co. of Liberty. The board voted in favor of paying the additional money Thursday.

The project’s original cost was $1,475,000, and required the contractor to disassemble the roof, take the broken boiler out and install a replacement with a crane at the plant on Poland Avenue.

With the change orders, the project’s final cost is $1,610,908 — about 9 percent more than the original proposal.

The additional work was essential to the project, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public works department.

The work included additional steel braces, structural work and mechanical equipment needed as A.P. O’Horo had to “squeeze” the new boiler “into an existing small space,” Shasho said.

The project took a year to complete, he said.

The plant’s two boilers were installed in the 1980s. The one that was replaced stopped working last year, Shasho said.

The other is “in need of replacement,” but will remain until the money is available for a new boiler in the next couple of years, he said.

“There’s a lot of things at the plant that we need to consider improving or replacing over time,” Shasho said.

That includes the plant’s disinfection system and its pumps, but that work is expensive and won’t be done for a number of years, he said.