LIVERMORE FALLS — Selectmen voted Friday to award the contract for the earthwork for a bike and walking path to low bidder Castonguay Logging and Excavation of Livermore Falls, Town Manager Jim Chaousis said after the meeting.

The nearly three-quarter-mile path will be built along the Foundry Road that starts behind the police station and runs past the recreation field to just beyond Verso Paper’s carry-in boat launch on the Androscoggin River. The total cost of the project is estimated at $223,000. The town is responsible for 20 percent, or about $44,000. That money was raised or designated in previous years.

The four bids received were analyzed by Wright-Pierce engineering firm to see if they met the outlined specifications, Chaousis said. There were discrepancies found in the two lowest bid figures, but they remained the two lowest bids in the same order after the numbers were checked and straightened out, according to a letter to Chaousis from the engineering firm.

The discrepancies in the bid submitted by Castonguay included round-off errors of some of the unit extensions and an incorrect extension of the total bid price for rock excavation. The Castonguay bid then ended up going from $99,042.50 as submitted to $98,042.72 when recalculated. The C.H. Stevenson Inc. of Wayne bid form had a wrong total on it, according to the firm. The bid was initially submitted at $99,085 and should have been $98,085.

The difference between the two bids was $36.28.

The bulk of the project is to be paid for by a federal and state grant, which requires the project be awarded to the lowest bidder, Chaousis said.

The other two bids received were from E.L. Vining & Son of Farmington, $126,933, and Pratt & Sons Inc. of Minot, $112,839.

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