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Board may award test well work for Nile Garden
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By ROSE ALBANO RISSO

The Bulletin

The Manteca Unified Board of Trustees will consider awarding the bid for a Nile Garden School test well when they meet Tuesday, June 25, immediately following the 5 p.m. closed session.

The staff’s recommendation to the board is to award the contract to Maggiora Bros Drilling, Inc. from Watsonville whose bid of $94,240 was considered “the lowest responsive/responsible” bid.

Seven bid packages were distributed and four vendors attended the pre-bid conference/site inspection.

This test well drilling project is part of the study process that was approved by the board in January of this year. The contract for the study process was awarded to NV5 (Nolte Vertical Five) to the tune of $205,000. Funding for that is coming from a $480,000 state grant that is specifically earmarked for the study whose sole purpose was to determine the most cost-effective and feasible way to deliver safe drinking water to the school.

A question was asked during the January board meeting whether that nearly half million-dollar grant could be used to connect Nile Garden to city water. It was explained at the time that the grant money was strictly mandated for conducting the feasibility study so it could not be spent for city water connection construction. Connecting with city water service still would be one possible way of delivering safe drinking water to Nile Garden School.

Currently, bottled drinking water is trucked to the school at cost to the district. Historically, Nile Garden has used well water for its irrigation and domestic water supply. The ground water, though, is considered unsafe to drink because its arsenic content has been deemed to exceed safe water levels for consumption.

The drilled test well will be used to get a sampling of the underground water at Nile Garden. The test well will be a six-inch hole dug 200 feet into the ground.

The board meeting will be held in the district office board room, 2271 West Louise Ave.

Contact Rose Albano Risso at ralbanorisso@mantecabulletin.com or at (209) 249-3536.