The final touches to wrap up the construction of the Polk County Transfer Station is wrapping up, but issues with the floor have kept staff from moving into the new office space said Polk County Environmental Services Administrator, Jon Steiner. Sub-contractor, Bruce’s Contracting Inc. out of Backus, hasn’t provided any solutions to problems with the concrete floor the county decided to move forward with a third party doing the repair work. “We’ve been in discussions with the contractor,” said Steiner. “In this case, its more the sub-contractor but of course everyone goes and gets their test results to show the significant pitting and popping in the floor is what’s happening. In the end, there was only one solution brought forward with no counter offers made by the sub-contractor. That would be to come in and grind the top layer of the concrete out to get rid of the pitting and popping. A new finish will be reapplied over the top of it so we have the wear we expect in a new building. It sounds like we could start moving in about the third week of April.”
The way the county contracts with the contractor is that they are allowed to move forward with the repairs and subtract them from their payment to the contractor, Nor-Son, who would likely withhold payment from the sub-contractor once the legal process between them plays out. “The contract allows that once we go through the process of trying to work through the contractors and there is no progress being made, we can jump in and say – that’s enough of this – do it and take it out of the contract price with the contractor,” said Steiner. “That’s our intent, obviously they can fight it and there is a legal process for that. We’ve made the contractor aware of it and they understand we need to get into the building and waiting for a resolution without something prompting it wasn’t going to happen. We have put them on notice that we are going to do it and will take it out of the payment with the contractor.”
All-Finish Concrete, out of West Fargo, ND, will grind the 6,790 square feet of concrete in the office then apply primer and coatings over five days at a cost of $33,271.00. Sterling Carpet One, Grand Forks, ND, will remove and re-install the rubber cove molding for $6,051.70.
The Polk County Landfill received a request for a large amount of building debris, including an estimated 230,000-240,00 dead chickens, considered problem materials, from a barn collapse at Baer Egg Farm in Lake Park this winter said, Steiner. “I didn’t get an egg count, but I did get a body count on estimated chicken mortalities,” said Steiner. “Having a landfill in rural Minnesota every now and then gives you some unique projects. We just built a cell right at the end of last year so we have lots of room to operate.”
Steiner says a solid waste that includes decomposing material such as this barn needs to be covered for odor issues and will typically result in quite a bit of settling, which is why the proposed Tip Fee is slightly higher than normal at $75/ton plus the 17 percent Solid Waste Material Tax paid to the Department of Revenue. “They have mixed debris of chicken mortalities, cages, and structure,” said Steiner. “They want to bring those out to us in relatively quick fashion. They gave us an estimate of a couple hundred thousand dead chickens intermixed with the demolition debris. That would have to go to our MSW (Mixed Solid Waste) due to the nature of the mortalities and the way the material will be brought out. We have space and can deal with the settling that happens. We’ve dealt with this with a few other projects where you have waste that decomposes quite a bit over time and you have settling and odor issues we have to stay on top of.”
The roads at the landfill are also beaten up every spring by the heavy trucks driving on wet dirt roads. The extra loads from the chicken barn will likely create a greater need to have someone repairing roads daily within the landfill. Because of the need for increased road maintenance, a $1,500/truckload handling fee would be added to each truck regardless of volume or size of the load. “Every spring we have issues with these 80,000-pound trucks out there going up the grade on these dirt roads,” said Steiner. “We beat them down and especially when the frost starts coming out it gets wet it gets bad. We may have just one person building roads for those trucks to come in and out all the time. That was part of the reason why we were increasing the handling fees for them because we know we’re going to do more road maintenance repair, have more vehicles stuck, need more cover material so we don’t have the odor issues and things that can easily get away from you.”
