The City’s sodium hypochlorite systems are designed to disinfect the City’s water system. The City has an existing blanket purchase order in the amount of $50,000 that expires in April 2022. Over the past six months, staff has been purchasing more parts and supplies for preventive maintenance and repair of these systems to ensure no interruptions in the day-to-day water supply operations. These parts and supplies are specialized products/equipment sold exclusively through Charles P. Crowley Company for Pulsafeeder chemical pump equipment and Chemtrac chlorine analyzer supplies. Sole source letters from the manufacturer have been submitted to the City to allow forgoing the competitive bid process for the purchase of these parts. 

Recently, staff identified a need to perform upgrades to equip all chlorine chemical pumps with new model pump heads and replace sensing probes for all chlorine analyzers located at each reservoir site for a total cost of $43,426.35. The cost, in part, is due to prices having increased from supply chain issues, raw material shortages, labor shortages and transportation challenges. Due to extensive maintenance requirements of chemical feed pumps and their necessity to supply water to the public, staff is requesting an ongoing additional $100,000 for a total of $150,000 for this blanket purchase order to ensure adequate funding availability to address maintenance issues in a timely manner.

There is no impact to the General Fund. The cost of these parts are included in the City’s adopted FY 2021-22 water budget.

It is recommended that City Council:

• Authorize the Finance Director to increase the blanket purchase order with Charles P. Crowley Company, in an additional amount of $100,000, for the purchase of parts for the City’s sodium hypochlorite systems at various water production facilities.

By: Robert Bermudez, Water Production Supervisor