ALPENA — The Alpena Municipal Council voted unanimously this week to award a pair of bids to two companies who will perform some minor maintenance and an inspection of one of the city’s water intake pipes that draws drinking water from Lake Huron.

The water is pulled into the city’s water plant where it is treated and release into the water system.

The work is minor and there is no threat to the quality and safety of drinking water.

City Engineer Rich Sullenger said a bid for $65,955 from Alpena Dive Service was accepted and the company will make repairs to the exterior cribs around each wooden inlet structure. The crib is a device designed to protect the intake pipe, and there is damage that needs to be fixed.

“We believe it was damaged by ice when we had low water levels, and our divers, who go out every spring and fall, identified the work that needed to be done and we bid it out,” Sullenger said. “They will also clean away the zebra mussels that have amassed at the intake.”

The bid for the inspection of the 2,000-foot pipe was submitted by Northern Divers, out of Illinois, for $23,740. That company will inspect the interior of the pipe, as well as get an update on the current condition of a liner that was placed in the pipe to reduce the speed of the water moving to the plant and reduce the amount of silt that comes with it.

“The liner was installed more than 30 years ago, and we suspect, like everything else, it is probably silted up, and this company will run a camera through the pipe and, if it needs to be cleaned, we can enter into another contract with somebody else to clean it,” Sullenger said.

It wasn’t that long ago that the city had concerns the pipe wouldn’t adequately draw water from Thunder Bay because the water levels in Great Lakes were near historic lows.

The city had planned to extend the pipe to deeper water, which would have cost in the millions. But Sullenger said that, now that water levels have rebounded, those plans aren’t as urgent as they once were.

“We were able to put that on the back burner for now,” he said.

There is $100,000 in the budget earmarked for the repairs and inspection.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.