TRANSMITTAL LETTER FOR BOARD MEETING OF AUGUST 6, 2015
COMMITTEE ON PROCUREMENT
Mr. David St. Pierre, Executive Director
Title
Report on advertisement of Request for Expression of Interest, Liquid Organic Waste Delivery to the Stickney and Calumet Water Reclamation Plants
Body
Dear Sir:
Request for Expression of Interest documents are being prepared for, Liquid Organic Waste Delivery at the Stickney and Calumet Water Reclamation Plants, at the request of the Engineering Department.
Both the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant (SWRP) and Calumet Water Reclamation Plant (CWRP) have anaerobic digesters which stabilize and reduce the volume of primary and waste activated sludge produced at the plant. A beneficial by-product of the anaerobic digestion process is digester gas, also known as “biogas.” The biogas contains a significant portion of methane gas and therefore is a viable renewable energy source. The SWRP and CWRP’s anaerobic digesters have the capacity to accept and process more organic matter than the solids currently being fed to them from the treatment process. The addition of more organic matter into the digesters would increase biogas production, and thus provide a major step towards the District becoming energy neutral.
The purpose of this Request for Expressions of Interest is to quantify the availability of liquid organic waste material available in the region and identify the potential suppliers who would find it economically beneficial to dispose of the liquid organic waste in the District’s anaerobic digesters. Liquid organic waste typically derives from facilities such as food processing plants, restaurant grease traps, breweries, and ethanol plants. Interested proposers will be asked to identify the character of their liquid organic waste, including the source of waste, approximate quantity, constituency, and frequency of production.
The information gathered in this Request for Expression of Interest will be used to determine how the District will proceed with design and construction of facilities for receiving and pre-processing the liquid organic waste material and will help provide the basis for financial evaluation of the overall program. Authority may be sought to negotiate long-term supply agreements with the proposers who submit the most favorable proposals based upon the waste characteristics, quantity and frequency of delivery, processing required, and cost.
The estimated benefit from this Expression of Interest is indeterminate at this time, as it remains to be seen what offers are submitted by the proposers. The Board of Commissioners will be kept apprised of the implementation approach that is ultimately determined to be the most beneficial to the District.
A bid deposit is not required for this Expression of Interest.
It is envisioned that agreements which ultimately may lead to the delivery of liquid organic waste material would not necessarily require conformance with the Multi-Project Labor Agreement or the District’s Affirmative Action policy for establishing Minority-owned Business Enterprises (MBE), Women-owned Business Enterprises (WBE) and/or Small Business Enterprises (SBE) utilization goals; consequently, demonstration of compliance with the Multi-Project Labor Agreement and the District’s Affirmative Action policy is not required in the initial Expression of Interest.
The tentative schedule for this contract is as follows:
Advertise August 19, 2015
Expressions of Interest Received September 25, 2015
Requested, Catherine A. O’Connor, Director of Engineering, TK
Respectfully Submitted, Darlene A. LoCascio, Director of Procurement and Materials Management