Work replacing the city’s pump house for watering Fort Lupton’s parks and recreation fields will come in lower than expected, Public works director Roy Vestal told City Councilors during their Feb. 22 town hall meeting.

Vestal said the city received four bids to do work replacing the non-potable pumphouse. Polarized Water Solutions submitted the low bid of $240,000.

“The budget we had in the utilities’ fund was $385,000,” Vestal said.

Councilors, pleased at the news, laughed.

“Don’t even think you get to spend all of that,” Mayor Zo Steiber said. “I saw your eyebrows.”

Vestal said work would begin as soon as parts for the work are available.

“It’s likely it will be operational this fall, depending on when he gets started,” Vestal said.

Fort Lupton uses a separate water system for fields and parks, using non-potable water that is clean but untreated. The pump station was manually controlled and was not automated. Crews would have to run the pumps to fill tanks, and then turn it off.

“What we are doing is downsizing to a smaller pump that has variable frequencies,” he said. “It’s not all on or all off. They can spin it up and get as much power as they need to keep the pressure in the system. It’ll have sensors on the system.”