Storm Lake council picks Bolton & Menk for new water plant design

Storm Lake leaders chose Bolton & Menk of Spencer to design the city’s new water plant, passing over longtime city water-and-wastewater engineer ISG of Storm Lake in a vote that put scoring, cost risk and public trust at the center of the decision. The council said Bolton & Menk’s proposal and presentation stood out enough to win the contract, even with a familiar local firm in the mix.

The council met Monday and awarded the work to Bolton & Menk with all members present except Councilman Rich Riner voting for the Spencer firm. According to the city’s scoring matrix, Bolton & Menk finished 29 points ahead of ISG, and Mayor Meg McKeon said the firm’s presentation was more thorough. For a project this important, that extra detail mattered as much as the numbers.

Councilwoman Maggie Martinez said Bolton & Menk answered more questions about responsibility and was direct about mistakes it had made in other situations. Her concern was not just who could draw the best plans, but who would stand behind them if something went wrong. Martinez said that if there is an error, it should fall on the firm rather than on the city, a view that framed the vote as a question of accountability for ratepayers.

Martinez also said she was uneasy about ISG’s partnership with AE2S, a Minnesota-based engineering firm she said the city had no experience with. Councilman Matt Ricklefs echoed the concern about how mistakes would be handled, saying Bolton & Menk dealt with liability better during the presentations. The discussion suggested the council was weighing more than technical design skill. It was deciding which firm seemed more willing to own the consequences of a major public works project.

Bolton & Menk representatives pointed to a previous error in Spencer involving flow monitoring and said the firm paid for the corrective meter itself. Council members viewed that as evidence of financial accountability, a concrete example of a firm taking responsibility instead of shifting the burden to the city. ISG, by contrast, was seen as less willing to speak as openly about fault and correction.

The choice now places Bolton & Menk in charge of a project that will shape Storm Lake’s water system for years. It also sets an early standard for how the city expects future infrastructure decisions to be made: with clearer scoring, sharper questions about liability and a closer look at who will pay when public works do not go exactly as planned.