Port awards $7 million contract to lay fiber through county

Port of Whitman County officials Monday awarded a $7 million contract to telecommunications construction firm Henkels and McCoy of Coeur d’Alene to link Whitman County with high speed fiber optic cable.

Henkels and McCoy bid $7,365,925 to install fiber optics from Spokane to Clarkston, linking several towns to high speed internet along the way.

Estimated construction cost from the port’s engineering firm, CHR, was $9,137,273.

The contract for the port project was almost awarded to Ledcor of Vancouver, B.C., which submitted a low bid of $5,349,724.

Port of Whitman executive director Joe Poire s...