An amendment to the design of a burn tower at the new emergency operations and training center will save Carbon County upward of $200,000 for the project.

Last week, the commissioners approved an amendment with Steve J. Elton of Bethlehem, the architect for the project, for the redesign of burn tower 2 at the Broad Mountain site in Nesquehoning. The new contract for Elton is $111,000.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said that through site visits to another burn tower and meetings with the project team, as well as a company who creates the fire linings for burn towers, the county has decided to change a few things that will provide a savings of between $140,000 and $220,000 for the construction, as well as long-term savings when the walls inside the burn tower need to be replaced down the road.

Through the discussions, the county is looking to eliminate some of the beams and double block walls, while replacing those options with another option that will provide the same benefit to the firefighters training in the tower, while not sacrificing the safety.

Carbon County has been working on the emergency operations and training center project since 2015.

In August, the commissioners approved bids totaling approximately $5.2 million for the four-story, fire training tower and burn rooms, as well as a two-story, observation building with single story police training room.