Construction work will begin in the next few weeks on a project that will provide drinking water to customers in Odem and in the western service area of the Rincon Water Supply Corp.

The Water District Board of Directors has awarded a contract to Bridges Specialties to construct Section 2 of the West Transmission Line. The project includes installation of 10.5 miles of 12-inch PVC pressure pipe purchased by the District in April. It also includes installation of fiber optic communications cable alongside the transmission line.

Four contractors bid on the project. The Bridges Specialties bid of $984,136 was $165,000 below the next lowest bidder. The total of the two contracts for Section 2 with pipe and installation is $1.6 million, well below original estimates for the project.

The Section 2 line will connect to Section 1, a 3.5-mile run of 18-inch diameter PVC pipe and fiber optic cable completed in April. The West Transmission Line starts at the new West Portland Pump Station.

The Board of Directors also accepted Section 1 as complete and authorized final payment to the contractor, Island Construction..

James Schwarz, consulting engineer to the District, said the District will have a full-time inspector watching the pipeline installation for quality control just as it did on Section 1.

The communities west of Portland have been served by a 24-inch steel transmission line installed in 1952. Once the new transmission line is complete the steel line will continue in use as a backup to the Water District system.

Completion of the pump station and Section 1 means that customers in Portland, Taft and the eastern portion of the Rincon system now receive drinking water that is treated at the District's water treatment complex between Gregory and Ingleside. Previously they received water treated at the City of Corpus Christi's O.N. Stevens Plant at Calallen. Customers of the Seaboard Water Supply Corp. will continue to get water from the Stevens Plant.