Folsom City Council approves contract to purchase water treatment chemical

The Folsom City Council agreed this week to spend well over a half-million dollars on chemicals to treat drinking water from Folsom Lake. The city of Folsom gets all of its water supply from Folsom Lake, Folsom environmental staff said. The city's water treatment plant treats up to 50 million gallons of lake water per day to provide potable water to customers. Recommended by the Environmental and Water Resources staff, the city council authorized a deal with Hasa, Inc. to buy sodium hypochlorite for the Folsom Water Treatment Plant for the next two years. The contract total will not exceed $676,880, staff said. The council approved the contract in the consent agenda portion of the regular Jan. 9 meeting. To meet the California Department of Public Health's drinking water standards, the treatment process uses a combination of flocculation/sedimentation pre-treatment, conventional gravity media filters and disinfection. An essential chemical for this process is sodium hypochlorite, staff said. In an effort to reduce overall chemical costs, the city developed a request for bids to promote a competitive bid environment last month, staff said in the report. Hasa provided the lowest "responsive and responsible" bid to for sodium hypochlorite, beating out Thatcher Company, Univar Solutions and Olin for the contract. Water Treatment plant staff estimates a need for 147,000 gallons of sodium hypochlorite for 2024 and estimated a 5-percent escalation in demand for 2025, resulting in an assumed quantity of 155,000 gallons. Funds for water treatment chemicals were included in the Folsom fiscal year 2023-24 operations budget. There are sufficient funds available in the water operating fund, officials said. This agreement will be included in future budget years.