Brian Shay was glad to make a phone call Tuesday morning, because that call will allow the recipient to prepare a few months in advance for a big project slated to start sometime next spring.

Shay called Quigg Bros., Inc., because the company had the winning bid — $2.5 million — for Hoquiam’s 10th Street Pump Station Project. Quigg Beat Rognlin’s Inc., whose bid was $2.7 million, and Northwest Cascade, whose bid was $3.4 million.

The bid received a unanimous vote from Hoquiam City Council on Monday night.

Shay said the new pump station, which is further inland from the pump station it’s replacing, is “really important,” for a couple of different reasons. The main reason was to better prevent flooding.

“Last year, we had a lot of flooding on Levee Street with king tides where the river actually overflowed its banks and flooded Levee Street,” Shay said. “So, this pump station will collect all the water that’s on Levee.”

The Chehalis Basin Flood Authority had awarded $2.2 million in grant funding for the project, but Shay said he thinks other grants will make up more of the difference between the $2.2 million and the $2.5 million. Shay also said anything the grant funding doesn’t cover, the city can use American Rescue Plan Act funds to bridge the gap.

“When you look at the total bid, there are two schedules, A and B,” Shay said. “Schedule A was everything related to building the pump station and then B was additional … start draining work we had to do to better collect the stormwater on Levee. We found some spots where water, if there was high tide, water basically could back up into the storm system and flood the street as well. We’re making some additional storm system corrections with the piping to further reduce flooding on Levee Street. The Levee Street stormwater improvements and the pump station will have a huge impact on reducing flooding in that downtown area.”

What about the old pump station?

“Building a new pump station was something we needed to do for the North Shore Levee West project because the pump station we had couldn’t handle the storm event as required for levee certification,” Shay said. “And the pump station that’s there today, if you went out there and looked, it actually sits right on the bank of the river. The pump station itself extends over the river. It’s kind of hidden by some bushes behind Swanson’s.”

The current pump station is behind the east end of Swanson’s and the west end of the Hoquiam Police Department building. The current station sits above the Hoquiam River bank. The new one will be more inland. The current pump station’s spot is a wonder to Shay.

“It was a horrible choice, 50 years ago or 70 years ago, whenever it was put in,” Shay said. “It’s one that’s caused us a lot of concern, because if it had a catastrophic failure, to fix it and address it would have been near impossible based on its location. So, it’s a huge win to get that replaced.”

Contact Reporter Matthew N. Wells at matthew.wells@thedailyworld.com.