Award of a $216,700 contract to Fairbanks Morse and Company of Portland, Oregon, for irrigation pumps for the Michaud Unit of the Fort Hall, (Idaho) Indian Irrigation Project was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.
The project is planned for completion in 1962 at an estimated total cost of $5,500,000.
The contract covers the furnishing of three vertical shaft centrifugal volute pumps of 110 cubic feet per second capacity at normal head of 92.4 feet to be delivered at Pocatello, Idaho, and installed in the proposed Portneuf Pumping Station about eight miles northwest of Pocatello.
The pumps are to be directly connected to 1,500 horsepower motors and will include the necessary control equipment. They will be used to lift water from the Portneuf River into the gravity system which will supply the 21,000 acre Michaud Unit of the Fort Hall, Project.
Four bids were received for this contract ranging from the low of $216,700 to $313,727.
Design work on the pumping station and appurtenant works is now in progress. It is anticipated that invitations for bids for their construction will be issued within the next few months. The contract for furnishing the pumps precedes the contract for construction of the pumping station due to the long delivery period incident to manufacture of large pumps.
