Port awards $7 million contract to lay fiber through county

Port of Whitman County officials Monday awarded a $7 million contract to telecommunications construction firm Henkels and McCoy of Coeur d’Alene to link Whitman County with high speed fiber optic cable.

Henkels and McCoy bid $7,365,925 to install fiber optics from Spokane to Clarkston, linking several towns to high speed internet along the way.

Estimated construction cost from the port’s engineering firm, CHR, was $9,137,273.

The contract for the port project was almost awarded to Ledcor of Vancouver, B.C., which submitted a low bid of $5,349,724.

Port of Whitman executive director Joe Poire said the county then consulted with its engineering firm, CHR, to review Ledcor’s bid, which turned out to be missing vital segments of the project.

Port Commissioners Monday voted unaimously to award the deal to the second-lowest bidder, Henkels.

Poire said he hopes to have the Henkels firm begin the project by the middle of next month and have it finished by November.

A federal stimulus grant of $9.8 million was awarded to the port in March of 2010 to complete the project. Overall cost of the project is expected to be just under $12 million.

Other costs of the project have already been paid for land acquisition, engineering and design.

The Whitman County section is part of a Northwest Open Access Network project to expand broadband to rural Washington state. NOANet, based in Tacoma, received $135 million in federal stimulus funding last year.

Funded through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the cable will run along state highways to bring high speed service to Rosalia, Oakesdale, Tekoa, Garfield, Palouse, Pullman, Colfax, Colton and Uniontown before hitting Clarkston.

Poire said the port’s goal is to have the fiber optic network attract private providers that could hook up rural homes and businesses with high-speed service.

The overall NOANet project will place fiber optic cable from Spokane to Walla Walla through Lewiston. Stimulus timelines require the project be completed in the next two years.

Initially, the fiber will be used to connect medical clinics and libraries to high-speed internet, increasing their ability to use and share online information.

Nine firms turned in bids for the job, including: Skyview Construction, Post Falls, $9,451,938; Robinson Brothers Construction, Vancouver, Wash., $9,840,096; North Sky Communications, Sherwood, Ore., $10,021,776; Pilchuck Contractors, Marysville, $10,655,826; Potelco, Inc., Spokane Valley, $11,000,433; Cascade Cable Constructors, Airway Heights, $11,951,716; and TetraTech Construction Services, Denver, $12,139,198.