sodium hypochlorite is a mixture of sodium hydroxide and chlorine. it is an essential chemicals utilized to ensure the safety of public drinking water. it is also used for disinfecting water treatment equipment to meet government regulations and to disinfect with water by removing pathogen's before sending the water out to the day. this contract is critical to the city's water treatment program and is one of half a dozen contracts that we periodically come to the board seeking approval for. the bid was issued on october 7th, 2010 and bids were due on november 12th, 2010. you will see here a summary of the results. basically, as you can see, olin, the recommended bidder was the low bidder. if you look at the three-year cost, the next low bidder is about $2 million higher, an increase of about 14%. the third bidder was almost $5 million higher, about 34.5% more. the low bidder, olin, is the largest producer of sodium hypochlorite in california and north america. this is unique in the industry. the product is produced in tracy, calif., and at four plant