The Village of Garden City Board of Trustees recently held a presentation from H2M Architects & Engineers on renovations and repairs to the village’s water tank along Old County Road on the Garden City Golf Club property.
H2M Senior Vice President Dennis Kelleher, who gave the presentation to the village board, presented recommended rehabilitation and replacement options. Rehabilitating the tank is anticipated to cost between $3.2 and $3.6 million, and replacing would be between $8 and $8.8 million.
The 83-year-old water tank was constructed in 1933 and is a riveted multi-supported steel structure. Kelleher gave an estimated life-span of 100 years for water tanks.
“The last rehabilitation of the tank was in 1992, and while it has a fair structural condition, its coating condition is poor,” Kelleher said. “There is lead contained in the exterior coating system, and leaks and holes in the roof are starting to occur.”
Last year, H2M performed emergency repairs on the tank for an estimated $3,000 cost, however Kelleher said it’s getting to a point where something more needs to be done.
According to Kelleher, in compliance with the Nassau County Health Department, H2M has been inspecting the village’s water tank twice a year for the past 12 years and the village has been in contact with H2M about the tank’s rehabilitation for the past six years.
The scope of the project would be various structural repairs, tank modifications for Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance, full tank containment system, removal of existing coating systems and application of new coating systems.
Rehabilitating the tank would allow it to reach useful life and extend timing for tank replacement. The tank would be out of service between six to 12 months, full lead abatement would be required, and replacement would be needed at the next rehabilitation cycle—which is 15 to 20 years.
Replacing the tank would, according to Kelleher, mitigate concern of remaining tank life. The existing tank would remain in service for three years during construction, and it would be out-of-service between 18 months and two years, or no down-time depending on the tank site. No lead abatement would be required and Kelleher said that municipal bond interest rates are low and uncertain in the future.
Kelleher pointed out that the existing tank is difficult to paint, due to a great amount of hard-to-reach areas along the structure and said that contracting prices for painting are expected to be “considerably high.” He also displayed three different models of water tanks that are currently available, varying in the amount of parts that make up the structure and suggested which would be most cost efficient to paint in the future.
Listing efforts to reduce the cost, Kelleher said that due to painting largely done in the fall or spring, if the village can not have the tank in service during summer, lower prices can be expected. He also suggested extended working hours and seeking further enhancement to site utilization.
“Our goal is to achieve 15 percent cost reduction,” Kelleher said.
Village Mayor Nicholas Episcopia expressed some concern with the tank being out of service during either rehabilitation or replacement and asked Director of Public Works Robert Mangan to speak to how it would affect water service in the village.
Mangan said the village board has touched base with the Village of Mineola on water services while the Garden City tank would be down.
“We would continue to maintain pressure from Mineola—when they painted their tank seven or eight years ago, they came offline and we provided the same service to them,” Mangan said. “If it’s out of service during winter months, it won’t be as big of a deal.”
The proposed tank rehabilitation was previously designed and bid in February 2011, where there were 13 pick-ups and three bid submissions. Kelleher said there are very few qualified contractors for this project and only one on Long Island.
That bid price came in at $2.9 million, and the village rejected all of them. H2M then rebid for overcoating in August 2012, which came to $1.1 million, where the village again rejected those bids as well.
Kelleher projected a re-bidding for the rehabilitation to be ready between fall 2016 and spring 2017.
