by Councilperson Robert Lynch; January 16, 2026
This isn’t the way the Enfield Town Board had hoped to start the New Year.
Bids for a giant concrete culvert to be placed under Bostwick Road not far from Route 327 came in way over estimate when those bids were opened earlier this week at the Town Clerk’s Office.
“We are going to be way over,” Town Supervisor Stephanie Redmond remarked as Clerk Mary Cornell January 12 unsealed the three submitted offers, one by one.
Of the three, a Watertown firm, Jefferson Concrete Corporation, submitted the apparent low offer of $471,600. The cost covers the concrete culvert’s manufacture and delivery alone, not its installation.
Officials had earlier estimated that the culvert would cost around $200,000. But heftier design specifications demanded by New York State had heightened the price, as had inflation.
The Town Board had planned to review the bids and then award one of them at its Regular Monthly Meeting Wednesday, January 14. The board somewhat accomplished the first task, but never got to the second. After briefly inspecting the offers that night, the board postponed action to seek more information.
The Town Board will likely decide its course of action at a Special Meeting Tuesday, January 20. The meeting had been called for other purposes, but Supervisor Redmond has added a culvert decision to the agenda.
When it next meets on the 20th, the Town Board could either award Jefferson Concrete’s low bid, rebid the purchase (although unlikely), or reject all bids in favor of a potentially less costly option.
From roadside, the Bostwick Road culvert project looks like a routine repair. But when two Town Board members, Enfield’s Highway Superintendent, and project officials convened Friday, January 16 to discuss alternatives, project Engineer Brian Reaser outlined the scope differently.
It’s going to look like they “threw a whole bunch of grenades and blew the whole thing up,” Reaser told attendees of what the site may look like this summer. There’ll be a “massive adjustment of what the scenery looks like,” he warned.
Should Enfield officials proceed and award the lowest submitted bid, culvert replacement would likely occur late this summer. Bid papers call for the supplier to deliver the box culvert no later than September first.
Submitted along with Jefferson Concrete’s $471,600 bid January 12 were those of Lakelands Concrete Products of Lima, NY for $684,514, and Binghamton Precast & Supply Corporation’s bid of $705,800.
In 2024, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) awarded Enfield a Water Quality Improvement Project (WQIP) grant of $693,866 for the Bostwick Road culvert replacement and stream relocation. Actual receipt of the grant award was delayed for months by DEC foot-dragging. The delay prevented the culvert’s replacement during 2024. Post-award engineering studies further precluded construction during 2025.
Supervisor Redmond advertised the request for project bids last month. For the sake of expediency, the Supervisor bypassed holding a formal Town Board authorization vote so close to Christmas. Redmond has stressed that offers needed to be awarded by January to assure timely construction.
But disappointment overcame all present the afternoon that Clerk Cornell opened the bids. And part of the problem, Town officials were told, rests—perhaps predictably—with New York State.
“Regulations have changed and been updated,” Angel Hinickle, Resource Conservation Specialist for the Tompkins County Soil and Water Conservation District, informed those present that day. The state now mandates a ten percent increase in culvert size to address predicted climate change, she said. At the January 16 conference, Hinickle also said that New York requires any culvert’s top to stand at least one foot above water level during a; “100-year flood.”
Enfield Creek, whose water would pass through the culvert, lies within the recently-designated Enfield flood zone.
There’s a second complication created by New York State. In late-December, Governor Kathy Hochul signed a new law that would mandate any factory manufacturer of a concrete culvert pay the (generally higher) “prevailing wage” to those who build it. The law would take effect later this year, perhaps June 1. But one or more of Enfield’s submitting bidders may have already factored the prevailing wage into their bids, thereby raising the price to Enfield.
And were Enfield to reject all of the bids just submitted and postpone construction until 2027, the prevailing wage mandate coupled with normal inflation could raise bid submissions by “40 to 50 percent,” Reaser told Friday’s meeting.
The possibility that Enfield might postpone the culvert project and pursue a cheaper, option dominated discussion during the hour-long January 16 conference. And the discussion revealed a split between the two Town Board members attending: Supervisor Stephanie Redmond, and Town Councilperson Robert Lynch (this writer).
In initial planning documents up until now, engineers had counted on installing—and only installing—a precast concrete culvert. The alternative, Board members learned at their Wednesday night meeting, is a “multi-plate aluminum box culvert.” Such a culvert is domed, it’s assembled on-site, and it rather resembles a Quonset hut buried under the road. The aluminum box is cheaper—a lot cheaper.
Although she made only an estimate and didn’t have in hand a firm bid, Hinickle Friday estimated the aluminum box would cost $266,486, just over 56 percent of what Jefferson Concrete’s bid had registered. Nonetheless, Hinickle and Reaser estimated that a metal box may cost $50,000 more to assemble on-site. Its parts bolt together. A concrete box is merely lowered into place by crane.
Bottom line: Friday’s estimates put the concrete culvert’s total project cost at $905,553. The aluminum culvert’s (admittedly more speculative) total price tag would reach$701,928. That’s a savings of $203,625, or about 22.5 percent, going the aluminum route.
Still, it’s not that simple. There’s an outside possibility that the New York State Transportation Department (DOT) may not accept the aluminum culvert’s selection. Pressed by Councilperson Lynch, Brian Reaser gave DOT’s acceptance likelihood at about “75 percent.” Reaser also warned that DOT could take up to nine months to make its decision.
What’s more, switching to the multi-plate aluminum design would require re-engineering the project. Reaser predicted redesign would take about one month to complete and would cost an additional $15,000 to $20,000.
Worst case: Were DOT to reject the aluminum option, a construction season would be lost, the current bids would have long-expired, and the “prevailing wage” mandate could push any fresh round of bids to $700,000 or beyond. Reaser said waiting until next year—and going concrete, by necessity—might inflate a $900,000 project to $1.125 Million.
But the culvert project is already way over budget. Its cost stands hundreds of thousands above the $693,866 that the WQIP grant had awarded.
At Friday’s meeting, Supervisor Redmond favored awarding the Jefferson Concrete Corporation bid and moving ahead with the project this year despite its higher cost. Redmond employed the “bird in the hand” analogy. To cover the funding shortfall, the Supervisor would tap—and significantly deplete—the Town’s budgeted $427,000 Bridge Reserve account.
Councilperson Lynch countered with a different opinion. “I’m willing to roll the dice and go aluminum,” he said. Lynch would bet on DOT’s acceptance of the metal plate. If DOT approved, the put-together aluminum plate box would “save the taxpayers $200,000.”
As Friday’s planning meeting closed, Lynch reduced the available options to four:
- Award the $471,600 Jefferson Concrete bid and utilize Bridge Reserves (or less likely, bonding) to cover cost overruns (Total = $905,553);
- Reject all current bids, reengineer for a multi-plate aluminum box, seek DOT’s approval, and bid the aluminum option, should DOT approve it (Total estimated = $701,928);
- Re-bid the concrete box culvert should DOT reject using an aluminum box (Total estimated = $1.125 Million); or
- Abandon the entire Bostwick Road culvert project until further notice.
The Enfield Town Board will weigh those options and likely decide among them Tuesday, January 20.
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Writer’s note: In accordance with recent style changes, detailed previously, this Councilperson will increasingly refer to himself in these reports (albeit awkwardly) in the third-person.
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