By Charley Falkenburg, Special to the Packet
WEST WINDSOR The rehabilitation of Grovers Mill Dam off Clarksville Road near Cranbury Road is now complete, just in time for the town’s biennial dam inspection.
At the Dec. 10 council meeting, Township Engineer Francis Guzik confirmed the concrete apron and spillway repairs at the dam are finished, giving the dam protection against future undermining should there be any future super storms.
The construction began in early November and consisted of installing bags filled with concrete at the downstream end of the spillway’s concrete apron, grouting beneath the concrete aprons and repairs to the concrete facing the upstream spillway wall.
The completed project was made possible due to a recently passed change order on Nov. 20, giving contractor Anderson Construction Services an additional $23,900 to address unforeseen issues.
”Thank you for making the decision to approve the change order,” said Mr. Guzik to the council. “The undermining we discovered was much more significant than the original project bid.”
Township officials said these issues began last year when Hurricane Irene made the site a critical flooding area, by deepening the end of the damn, causing the water to spill over and erode the ground. This year’s Hurricane Sandy didn’t seem to make the situation any better.
Councilman Bryan Maher appeared less happy about the project’s completion and more concerned about the errors that resulted in additional money that brought the project to a total of $63,550.
Mr. Guzik explained at the first inspection in November of 2009, the consultant estimated the depth to be 1 to 3 feet. After Hurricane Irene in 2011, the second inspection found the depth to be 5½ feet. Then after Hurricane Sandy, the memorandum for the change order signified the depth had doubled to 10 feet.
Mr. Maher questioned the contractor’s competency in accurately gauging the project.
”This is $30,000. I’m sick of change orders that I think are either due to bad information we are putting out as an engineering department or bad bidding we are getting from contractors,” he said. “I’m frustrated it’s way off.”
Confusion on the bidding process, which began at the Nov. 20 meeting, resurfaced when Mr. Guzik explained bidders are required to sign off certifying they have been to the project site. Mr. Maher said Business Administrator Marlena Schmid had said the opposite at the previous meeting.
”We just spent a lot of legal money these past two weeks getting a kind of wishy-washy response from our counsel trying to find if they (bidders) are or aren’t required, because we were told by our administrator we couldn’t require them to come out,” he added.
Township Attorney Michael Herbert clarified that he had said they were not able to require pre-bid meetings. He explained the town could make the contractor inspect the dam, but could not enforce a pre-bid meeting conference at the dam.
”I didn’t give you wishy-washy language,” he added. “I don’t appreciate you calling me wishy-washy.”
Mr. Guzik further explained that typically, a pre-bid meeting is a voluntary meeting for potentially interested contractors, which occurs a few weeks before the official bid opening at whatever location is most convenient. The meeting is for their convenience only and a bid cannot be awarded on whether they attended.
Mr. Maher appeared to remain unsatisfied with the explanations and maintained that the cost projections were way off.
”We need to do a better job to get the contractors to make a really accurate bid,” he said. “Sticking a stick down in the water to see how deep it is isn’t that hard to do
.” Mr. Guzik disagreed, citing it is hard to do if it poses a hazard to the contractor. In prior inspections, Mr. Guzik said they used professionals who had the manpower and equipment. Mr. Maher ended the discussion on the dam, saying he would like to not see this happen again.

