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By Eder Campuzano Grants Pass Daily Courier February 06. 2016 12:01AM Josephine County taxpayers stuck with $77,000 water-testing bill Josephine County has received a $77,000 bill for water testing at the site of a former dam located between Rogue River and Wimer. That's the amount taxpayers will have to pony up, even though the now-demolished Fielder Dam is not even in Josephine County and county officials have since canceled the contract. The price and the bidding process have been hotly contested ever since the contract was awarded to a private firm called Grants Pass Water Laboratory on Nov. 4. The Board of Commissioners initially approved the work over concerns by former state legislator Gordon Anderson and others that the removal of the irrigation diversion dam on Evans Creek would unleash toxic sediments into the Rogue River — the primary water source for Grants Pass. After a rival company in Medford offered to do at least some of the testing for free, the board canceled the contract. But Grants Pass Water Lab had 30 days to wrap up the work and file an invoice. According to documents acquired by the Daily Courier, work on the Evans Creek project finished on Dec. 28 — 33 days after the contract was terminated. Grants Pass Water Laboratory owner Eric Schaafsma told the Daily Courier this week that he has been waiting to release the results of the testing until he had a guarantee that the county would pay the invoice. Commissioner Simon Hare, the sole vote against the contract, said he remains concerned about the need for the work in the first place. The original contract authorized $135,000, but the lower amount that will be paid is the result of canceling the contract. "I came in late to the game and it seemed the decision had already been made that this is what we're going to do," he said. "When the decision was made, I petitioned the board to consider the contract." County Finance Director Arthur O'Hare said that the invoice will be paid in full. He also confirmed the money would come out of the county's general fund. Fielder Dam was located in Jackson County, as is the portion of Evans Creek where Schaafsma's firm was testing. A barrier to salmon migration, it had not been used in decades and was torn down in August of 2015. In comments this week to the Courier, Kim Ramsay, the vice president of Neilson Research Corporation in Medford, repeated her concerns about the necessity of the testing. "The Army Corps of Engineers didn't just take a dam down without testing. They don't do that — the EPA would not allow that," she said. She said her firm dismissed the county's one-page bid request in November because it was overly broad and didn't delineate exactly what kind of work the Board of Commissioners was ordering. The Daily Courier has asked the Corps of Engineers to confirm the results of its testing, but the agency has yet to respond. http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20160206/NEWS/160209755 © 2016 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->