The Highland School Board has entered round two of finding a bid for the district’s wastewater treatment plant project. 

Since late 2018, the district has been working on their wastewater system to help meet the Iowa Department of Natural Resources limits for ammonia and E. coli. The board initially budgeted $800,000 to install a Submerged Attached Growth Reactor lagoon system in 2020. After contractor bids came in over budget last spring, the school board has sent the project out for bids a second time in hopes of receiving lower bids. Superintendent Ken Crawford says that they hope to move forward with the project soon but at a reasonable cost, “We’d get the bids back in at the end of February and if they were agreeable then I would put it in front of the board at our March 14th meeting. Then see if we wanted to say yes or no to the project. We would kind of like to get it done and get it off our books but we also don’t want to pay an exorbitant price for it either.”

In December of 2021, the board extended their engineering contract with HR Green to help with the bid process. At that time, Matt Wildman with HR Green expressed to the board that with material prices stabilizing, now is the time to rebid. The DNR has extended the deadline for completion to 2027.