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Contract - Utility Locating and Mapping Services
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INFORMATION CONTACT:
Christopher Clark, UC Water - Water & Wastewater Operations, Director, 704-296-4215
ACTION REQUESTED:
Authorize the County Manager to 1) negotiate and execute an agreement substantially consistent with this agenda item, 2) exercise any renewal or extension term options set forth in the Agreement, and 3) terminate the Agreement if deemed in the best interest of the County, each in the County Manager's discretion.
PRIOR BOARD ACTIONS:
None.
BACKGROUND:
Union County Water maintains and operates over 1,000 miles of water system infrastructure and over 700 miles of wastewater infrastructure. A large portion of the combined 1,700+ miles of piping is located near roadway shoulders in both residential and commercial areas. A State managed system for locating underground infrastructure exists and is operated by NC811. Utilities are required by NC General Statute Chapter 87, Article 8A, to mark all requests within 3 days of receipt of the request. With the proliferation of underground cable and fiber installation contractors working in Union County, UC Water is overwhelmed with the number of locate requests it receives.
Water and Wastewater Operations currently has a crew of seven to complete our ticket load, which is on track to reach 70,000 this year. This results in 27 locates per day per employee or about one every 18 minutes. As a result, UCW has often had a locate backlog stretching into the hundreds.
Since then, UCW has added staff to the locate crew, improved processes, and worked with the contractors to reduce the number of requests. This has resulted in elimination of the backlog and being able to keep up with the workload. This contract for utility locate and mapping services is a supplement to staff should the workload exceed our staff resources or require a technology that we do not have (e.g. ground penetrating radar). Locating underground services requires a very specific skill set and rapid response given the time frames in which we must complete the locate tasks. Our efforts have resulted in reduced pipe breaks and damage, work for our repair crews, and inconvenience to our customers.
The Procurement Department partnered with Union County Water to issue a Request for Proposal RFP 2025-054 Utility Locate Services. On July 15, 2025, four proposals were received and reviewed by an evaluation team in accordance with applicable evaluation criteria for this project. As a result, the team requests approval to enter into a contract with the top scoring/ranked preferred offeror, Surveying and Mapping, LLC, to provide Utility Locating services. This contract has an initial term of three years with two one-year renewal options at the sole discretion of the County and is subject to annual budget appropriation.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
The anticipated annual cost for this service is up to $300,000. Since this contract contains an initial three-year term, with two additional one-year renewal options, a total of up to $1,500,000 is estimated to be spent. Funding is available in the adopted FY26 budget appropriation with future expenditures subject to annual BOCC budget appropriation.