Fluor Wins Bidding Battle but Ends Up Losing War

The intent of competitive bidding for government projects is to save taxpayers as much money as possible, but that goal is being missed by a steadily increasing margin as a trio of contractors--two from Orange County--do battle over a Northern California water treatment plant.

Whether the facility costs $44.4 million or $45.3 million or even $45.6 million hinges on which would-be bidder was able to fill out the complex written bid form with the least number of errors.

The giant Fluor Corp. already had lost out in a preliminary round that required a federal court hearing to decide.

The Irvine company made an error in the paper work that accompanied its final bid for the job, omitting the name of the maker on a piece of equipment to be installed in the plant if it got the contract.

So while Fluor’s bid of $44.4 million was the lowest submitted, the federal Environmental Protection Agency denied the contract because of the omission and ruled that the job would have to go to the next bidder, who came in at $893,000 more than Fluor.

Fluor challenged that decision, and on Monday a federal judge upheld the EPA, awarding the contract--now priced at $45.3 million--to a joint venture of Minneapolis-based M.A. Mortenson and Natkin & Co. of Orange.

But the saga of the Monterey waste-water treatment facility is far from over.

It seems that the third-place bidder, Dillingham Construction Co., based near San Francisco, now is asking the EPA to take the contract way from Mortenson and Natkin because of errors in their bid.

Dillingham, which wants $45.6 million to do the job Fluor would have done for $44.4 million, claims that Mortenson and Natkin named the wrong manufacturer for a product it intended to install in the plant.

A decision by the EPA is expected by early December, according to a spokesman for the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency.

Moreover, while Fluor has not yet made a final decision, a spokesman said Thursday that the company may decide to take a whack at Mortenson and Natkin’s bid, too. “We’re reviewing our options,” the spokesman said.

And while the contractors and the EPA battle over who forgot to fill out which line on what form, Ann St. Pierre, the disheartened spokeswoman for the water pollution control district, said Wednesday: “I don’t think we’ll ever get off the ground on this project. To us, the whole thing wasn’t that big a deal and we have been really surprised by it,” especially, she said, because errors like the ones that may cost the two low bidders the job “could happen in any number of ways.”

Although no one is sure how much money the battle over the contract is costing, St. Pierre said construction on the project, on which planning began in 1971, was to have begun this month but now will be delayed at least until early next year.

“We had planned to be on line in 1988. That was our original plan,” she said. “We’re kissing 1986 now and I don’t know when we’ll ever break ground.”