Paulding Commissioners approve key funding for Richland Creek Reservoir project

Paulding Commissioners recently approved two key funding items for the county’s Richland Creek Reservoir (RCR) project after an update from Brown and Caldwell’s Kelly Comstock, the project’s chief engineer.
Commissioners approved the Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) of $86,795,045 with PC Construction for the construction of the Richland Creek Water Supply Program Water Treatment Plant, Reservoir Intake and Pump Station and Etowah River Intake and Pump Station. And on another agenda item to approve the RCR Program Management Funding Authorization #2 for Program Management Services in the amount of $4,100,000.
That extends management services with Brown & Caldwell through construction of the site, according to Laurie Ashmore, director of Paulding Water System, who also addressed Paulding Commissioners earlier this month.
The BOC approved both items in their voting session later in the day. The approval of these latest items effectively moves the project into its construction phase, with completion expected in 2021. Prior to the voting session Comstock told Commissioners that timber clearing is completed for an entrance road from Hwy 61 and erosion control is installed at the site. Site prep is on-track for an August completion, he said.
There are six prequalified contractors, he said, and four of the six [bidders] had requested an extension, which was granted. Bids are due to be presented to the BOC next month. A preconstruction conference also occurred earlier this month.
PC Construction, the selected dam contractor, will begin in late August or early September and pipeline construction begins late this year and is expected to complete in about a year, Comstock said. The Finished Water Pipeline and Booster Pump Station are in the design stage and will complete in January. Construction is expected to complete by March of 2019.
The reservoir is designed to yield about 35 million gallons per day and will provide about 3.43 billion gallons of water storage to support Paulding County. Overall the program is on track with the budget, Comstock told Paulding Commissioners. The project’s original budget is 40 percent under contract and with last week’s approvals the project moves to 60 percent under contract of the $215 million total, he said. The project will head to the bond market with 80 percent under contract, which will benefit that initiative, he said.
Funding is coming from a mixture of county-issued bonds, loans from the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority, and state grants. Per Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA) guidelines, 100 percent of the project should be competitively bid, which will attract a good bit of local participation, Comstock told Paulding Commissiones.
Comstock said that the Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) process has been very effective in reducing costs from its earlier estimate of $98 million at the 30 percent stage down to the $86 million by 100 percent.
Rather than the conventional approach of design, bid, and build, which allows for 100 percent of the design to be completed, The CMAR design was evaluated at 30 percent and later at 60 percent and adjusted accordingly to keep construction costs consistent with design estimates.
“The big advantage [of the CMAR process] is you that get the contractor involved during the design process, so you understand what the costs are going to be much earlier on,” Comstock commented in an earlier presentation.
Recently the county also approved water rate hikes to help with the RCR bonds.
“Setting up the rate adjustment ahead of time sets us up to go to the bond market to be able to basically show we’ve got this in place [and] would allow for more confidence in the county being able to pay those bonds back, which should get us a better bond rate, so a better interest rate for the county,” Comstock said. Paulding County has an agreement that runs until 2032 with Cobb- Marietta Water Authority, an independent state-chartered agency, which receives water from Lake Allatoona, a USCOE-controlled reservoir.
Atlanta Regional Commission population projections show Paulding growing to 255,000 residents by 2040. Among Georgia’s 159 counties, Paulding is the 14th largest.

RCR site design rendering, including dam (submitted)
Kelly Comstock, RCR project manager (Photo: Submitted)