School district chills to geothermal project due to costs
WELLS — An attempt to revive the geothermal heating system to provide warmth for the recreation center that Elko Boys and Girls Club is constructing in Elko and to heat Elko High School and Flag View Intermediate School has failed, at least for now.
The Elko County School District's trustees voted to reject the sole school district-specific bid for restoring the pipeline system at the recommendation of Superintendent Clayton Anderson, who told the school board the district's "ability to even accept the bid was contingent on the Boys and Girls Club accepting the base bid."
He said the Boys and Girls Club had planned for a federal tax credit to afford the geothermal update but that didn't "pan out as we were led to believe as far as tax credits go," and the Boys and Girls Club dropped its effort to provide geothermal heat to the recreation center.
Anderson told school trustees gathered in Wells on Tuesday the costs "made it untenable for both sides."
He said, however, the school district is "looking at other opportunities to get geothermal running," because it could save 80% of the yearly energy costs for Elko High School and Flag View and save "a significant amount of money in the neighborhood of a couple hundred thousand dollars."
The district "will continue to look for a path to make this project happen, but right now it doesn't make sense from a dollar and cents standpoint," Anderson told the board.
The geothermal system that years ago provided heat for Elko High, Flag View, Elko Convention Center, Elko City Hall, the city's swimming pool and Great Basin College has been out of service for years and needs an upgrade to be functional.
The new Nevada Gold Mines Recreation Center will include swimming pools to be built on the site of the city's public pool, and the base bid was for the Boys and Girls Club's proposal to upgrade the wellhead and transmission line from Flag View to the swimming pool site.
The alternative bid was for the school district to extend the upgraded geothermal system from the new swimming pool to Elko High School.
Acha Construction LLC provided the only base bid and an alternative bid of $2.39 million, but instructions to bidders stated the school district could not accept the alternative bid unless the Boys and Girls Club accepted the base bid, according to the school board agenda.
Anderson recommended the Boys and Girls Club reject the base bid made to that organization, which the club's board did on Oct. 21, the agenda stated, and that left the school board with no choice but to reject the alternate bid.
The base bid to the Elko Boys and Girls Club was $2.9 million, Anderson said in a Thursday email after hearing from Rusty Bahr, chief executive officer of the Boys and Girls Club.
In addition, Matt Stahlke, director of building and construction for the school district, said the district had learned that while looking for additional money from grants and energy credits the process would require additional infrastructure, so the district "pulled back to do a redesign."
Elko Boys and Girls Club has already started construction on the 29,000-square-foot recreation center that will have two indoor pools and an outdoor pool with water slides for summer use, as well as a teen center with pool tables, computers, television and game tables.
Bahr said in July the new recreation center is designed for geothermal heat, and the geothermal restoration project had reached the bidding stage after Petty and Associates Engineering was hired, with the help of the school district, for $490,000 to engineer rehabilitation of the well and lines.
Elko City Council voted in the summer to withdraw from the longtime community agreement for geothermal energy, and City Manager Jan Baum said then the user group still had roughly $200,000 from when the system was active.
Elko Convention and Visitors Authority members voted to hold off on withdrawing so they could leave the door open to receiving geothermal heat again and GBC expressed interest in geothermal service.
An in an August 2010 Elko Daily Free Press states geothermal energy users on the school district well in 2010 included Flag View, the convention center, a portion of Elko High, the high school's central office, Elko City Hall, the city swimming pool and GBC's electrical and technology building.
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