Countywide : Supervisors Award Landfill Contract

The Board of Supervisors has awarded an $18.3-million contract for waste-containment work at Coyote Canyon Landfill to Sukut Construction Inc.

The Santa Ana firm won the contract with an $18.3-million bid. Although another Illinois-based firm had proposed to perform the same work for $1.6 million less, it was disqualified because its bid was submitted two minutes too late, according to county officials.

Under terms of the contract, the firm would place a cap on the landfill to ensure that the waste there is properly contained. Coyote Canyon Landfill stopped accepting waste in March, 1990.

Chemical Waste Management of Illinois raised questions about the bidding process at a supervisors’ meeting two weeks ago after the company’s rejected bid was returned opened.

Under state law, late bids must be returned unopened. But county counsel Terry Andrus dismissed any suggestions of wrongdoing, saying that the company was automatically disqualified when it filed a late bid.