Project Status and Schedule

As of August 2021, the consultants for the four Western Intake Partnership preliminary projects have been interviewed and selected. Defining the services required from consultants and developing the desired scope of services for each project were among the first tasks completed by the Partners. The requests for qualifications/proposals were completed in late 2020, and advertisements for consultants were posted individually on westerintakepartnership.com/business, on a six-week alternating interval between January 2021 and June 2021.

The consultant selection process included review of consultant statements of qualifications and proposals, interviews with the top two candidate consulting firms, and a consensus-based selection by the Western Intake Partners.  After the Partners selected a consultant, they negotiated contract scopes and fees for each project. The City of Durham is the contracting agency for the preliminary projects, on behalf of the partnership.  The consultants selected for the Water Intake and Transmission Infrastructure Preliminary Engineering (Hazen and Sawyer, P.C.) and Partnership Governance (Raftelis Financial Consultants) projects were approved by the Durham City Council in August 2021. These projects are scheduled to begin in September 2021.

Consultants selected for the Environmental Permitting and the Regional Water Treatment Facility Preliminary Engineering projects are anticipated to finalize scoping and submit contracts for the Durham City Council for approval in Fall 2021. Work on these projects will begin within 30 days following Council approval.  The preliminary engineering and Partnership Governance projects are anticipated to be completed in 2023; the Environmental Permitting project, which includes regulatory and public involvement elements, is anticipated to be completed no earlier than 2024.