By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Contracts for two new sewer projects, with work expected to begin this spring, were approved unanimously by the Board of Selectwomen on Wednesday. Both also had been unanimously approved by the Representative Town Meeting the night before.

“These are additional funds needed to meet the construction costs,” Bryan Thompson, Water Pollution Control Authority collection systems supervisor, told the selectwomen about the financing needed to complete the projects. 

A $1,689,040 contract to extend sewers into the Roseville Road/Whitney Street area was awarded to M. Rondano Inc., a Norwalk construction company specializing in sewer installation. The new sewers will be installed on Whitney Street, Roseville Road, Fernwood Road, Plumtree Lane, Pamela Place and Ledgemoor Lane.

An initial $1.31 million was approved for the project by the Board of Finance and RTM last year. Extra funding of $416,000 was unanimously approved by the RTM on Tuesday night, and the contract was awarded the next day by the selectwomen.

At the same meeting, the selectwomen also awarded Burns Construction Co. of Stratford a $3,481,833 contract for sewer construction in the Evergreen Avenue area. 

That project calls for installation of sewers on Evergreen Avenue, Evergreen Parkway, Tamarac Road, Lone Pine Lane, Gorham Avenue, Compo Road North and Brookside Drive. 

The Evergreen Avenue project, which needed an additional  $790,000 to move forward, was also approved by the Board of Finance and from the full RTM on Tuesday. 

With the contracts approved and the funds appropriated, Thompson mailed out the notice of contract approval to both firms Thursday. 

Burns Construction has already formally accepted its contract, Thompson said Friday. The next step is for the firm to compete the bonding and insurance process. Once that is done to the satisfaction of the town, First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker will execute the contract, and construction can begin, Thompson explained.

The allotted time in the Roseville/Whitney Street contract is 180 days, and the Evergreen Avenue contract is for 300 days, Thompson said. He expects construction to begin in April.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years and teaches journalism at Southern Connecticut State University.