Weed Council awards 2008 contracts

By Maurice Emery
Editor

The primary agenda for the regular March meeting of the Lake Gaston Weed Control Council (LGWCC) was partially set at the special meeting called last month to award the weed treatment contract for the 2008 season. 

The February 18 meeting was originally called to award the contract for the 2008 weed season.  At that meeting the bids were originally read without mention of who the company was that submitted the bid.  The first bid was for a total of $225,000, the second was for $274,500 and the third was for $199,000.

When the names of the bidders were read the first was for Professional Lake Management, the second for Foster and the third for Skip’s Aquatic Solutions LLC.  This meant that Skip’s Aquatic would be the bid winner. 

Prior to awarding the contract there was a discussion over whether or not the low bidder met all the necessary requirements to perform the treatment.  At the center of the discussion was whether or not Skip’s Aquatic met the requirements. 

Pete Deschenes, of Warren County and Lake Gaston Stakeholders Board President (LGSB) questioned the fact that Skip’s Aquatic was a new company with no track record.  Rives Manning, Weed Council Treasurer and a Halifax County Commissioner an alternate member representing Halifax County, responded that he feels quite comfortable that Skip had the necessary experience, he added “he was the manager with ANPC.”  ANPC had been the contractor performing the treatment since the early 1990’s.

It was brought out several times by Wayne Carter, Mecklenburg County Administrator, that by law the Council had to award the bid to the lowest responsible bidder. 

The discussion continued over whether or not they could put requirements on the bid after the bidding was complete.  They decided that they would require all the bidders to provided evidence of: (1) having the necessary equipment; (2) being able to provide storage space for the chemicals being used; (3) the proper staff to do the job; (4) enough experience to do the job, (5) licenses for doing business and performing the applications; and (6) knowledge and expertise to do the job.  There would be two other requirements but they could not be expected to meet them until the bid was awarded they are: (7) plans on how to do the job and (7) a performance bond for the job.

For over an hour of this month meeting the discussion was almost a re-run of the discussion of the February meeting.  After announcing that the two lowest had fulfilled the requirements of providing proof of the criteria mentioned in the February meeting, the discussion was over whether or no the winning bidder must have all of stuff needed to fulfill the contract in place on the March 1 date or would have it in place at the time of the treatment start date. 

If the requirement was that the winning bidder must have everything in place on March 1 it would mean that the lowest bidder may not be qualified because he would still need to acquire some additional equipment and possibly other items mentioned in the requirements.  This discussion took over an hour of the meeting time, most of which was spent in a closed door session with William McBlief, county attorney for Halifax County.

When the meeting resumed a motion was made and seconded that they award the bid to the lowest responsible bidder.  The motion passed and Skip’s Aquatic Solutions LLC will be awarded the bid at $44.40 per acre.

One of the major points of consideration at the meeting was more of passing comment than a prolonged discussion.  Weed Council President Dr. Elton Brown told the meeting that we should remember that they have to be careful of how they treat and control hydrilla.  He said, “Hydrilla is not the number one enemy at any given time, there are other things that will take its place as you cut it back that are more difficult to treat.  That’s why we have to be careful of how we eradicate it.”

The next order of business was awarding the contract for the chemical supplier for the 2008 treatment.  Signet Enterprise Inc. won the bid for chemicals.  The question was raised as to why there were chemicals on the bid list that were not used in treatment.  The council felt that all possible chemicals that were needed or may be needed for treatment are on the bid list.

The board then authorized a separate Request for Proposal (RFP) for the 2008 noxious weed treatment survey.  Once that was approved the decision was made to contact a company by the name of Remetrix to negotiate the cost of a fall survey. 

The meeting was then turned over to Doug Henderson, commercial manager for Remetrix for a brief explanation of how they performed the fall survey and the results of the survey. They recorded at 867 points around the lake to compile their data.   He revealed that 86% of the total aquatic cover in Lake Gaston was hydrilla. The survey was able to show the difference between treated areas and untreated areas. 

One of the advantages of using Remetrix is that they hold the data on file for comparisons year to year.  It was reported that in 2005 there was 3,856 acres of hydrilla, in 2006 it was 3,032, and in 2007 it was 1,235 acres. 

There was a report from Rob Richardson, from North Carolina State University,  for the LGSB.  He reported that according to all the information they have there are now 15 triploid grass carp per acre. The goal was to maintain a stocking rate of 10 grass carp per acre, so no new grass carp will be added except those needed for specific studies.

In 2008 they will allow 100 grass carp to be tagged and released into the lake for telemetry studies. 

It was reported that through the efforts of Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode, Jr. there will actually be $265,000 coming to Lake Gaston for noxious weed control through the Department of Agriculture.  The original figure was $312,000 but all of that money does not make it to the lake. 

North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole has made it possible for another $512,000 for the lake, but that money goes through the Army Corps of Engineers so we may only see about half of it actually used for the noxious weed control efforts.

During the public comments portion of the meeting a representative of Timberline Shores mention that they have spent $72,000 for hydrilla treatment over the years and wanted to know how they make sure that they be considered for free treatment if there area looks like it is under control.

Dr. Brown said that the best thing subdivisions could do to make sure they are being considered for treatment is to make sure who ever does the private treatment reports it to the weed council.  He also used this portion of the meeting to reveal that the subdivision he lives in has never been treated with Weed Council funding.