Work on the Manhan River fish ladder should be completed this summer.
Workers from the CRC Co., Inc.of Quincy, build a temporary dam so they can begin work on a fish ladder on the Manhan River near Route 10 in 2010. A new contractor is scheduled to finish installing the fish ladder in Easthampton this summer. Work had stopped after CRC said it needed more money to finish the work.
EASTHAMPTON – The city has awarded the contract to complete the Manhan River fish ladder to New England Infrastructure Inc. of Hudson, which was the low bidder.
The contract has not yet been signed, Mayor Michael A. Tautznik said Friday. The bid was for $465,000, but with a little less money available at this time, the contract has been amended to $393,600 with some grading and fencing removed from the project, Tautznik said.
Melissa Grader of the federal Fish & Wildlife Service, said the service has identified $314,753 to fund the work. Tautznik said about $75,000 more should be available.
Six other companies bid on the project in December, including AJ Virgilio Construction of Westfield, with a bid of $533,220, and Clayton D. Davenport Trucking of Greenfield, with a bid of $762,507.
The ladder is designed to help species like shad, blueback herring and Atlantic salmon reach spawning waters upstream from the dam.
The ladder was supposed to have been in place by the spring of 2011, but the contractor, CRC Co., of Quincy, said in 2010 it would need an additional $447,600 to finish the job.
Crews faced a series of problems, including the discovery of wooden timbers buried under sediment. Those timbers need to be removed before the ladder can be installed.
The Fish & Wildlife Service had granted $750,000 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus money for the project. The project has been in the pipeline for about a decade.
Tautznik said the work should be done this summer.