Continuing a practice started in the 1990s, the West Basin Municipal Water District has again bypassed competitive bidding in awarding a multimillion-dollar contract to operate its wastewater treatment facility in El Segundo.

The district board recently renewed a five-year contract worth roughly $13 million a year to Suez Water Environmental Services to run the award-winning plant. Since 2016, Suez has earned roughly $61 million on the deal with West Basin.

Suez — and before that United Water, which Suez purchased in 2000 — had previously been awarded contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to operate the plant, all without bidding.The latest contract is roughly $2 million less per year than its previous agreement.

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