New bids for the city’s auxiliary water line were opened at the Board of the Mayor and Alderman meeting Friday morning.

The base bids range from $8.5 million from Columbia-based T. L. Wallace Construction down to $7.3 million from Florence-based Hemphill Construction.

Plans for an auxiliary waterline project began in 2010 after a sudden shift in the soil on Washington Street during construction of the Lower Mississippi River Museum and Interpretive Center. The shift threatened they city’s main 36-inch water line. The water line was later relocated.

“If we don’t do nothing else, this will be the most important job we can do in this city, because it will give us some relief if we have a water problem,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said.

City Attorney Nancy Thomas said, in a May Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting, the city has been working on the line for six years.

T.L. Wallace Construction had a base bid of $8,574,675 and two alternate bids of $3,810,125 and $104,000.

DirtWorks Inc had a base bid of $8,346,200 and two alternate bids of $3,602,300 and $150,000.

S.J. Louis Construction had a base bid of $7,626,590 and two alternate bids of $3,463,750 and $66,000.

Hemphill Construction had a bid of $7,329,672 and two alternate bids of $2,937,206 and $160,000.

In April 2014, city and county officials approved an agreement allowing the city to take over the maintenance and repair for Fort Hill Drive. This cleared the way to run the line south on Fort Hill Drive to connect the line on Jackson Street.

Work on the city’s auxiliary water line could begin in late July or early August, pending the selection of a contractor to install the line that will run from the city’s water treatment plant on Haining Road to Jackson Street.