Mr. Chairman, I will reiterate that 80 percent of the value of this purchase was for equipment that no northern supplier could provide, so there was no opportunity to break that up into smaller pieces that would allow them to participate. It's not simply supplying the equipment that's at issue. The reason HP doesn't certify companies for reselling of this equipment is because they don't have the support capability for it. It has to work together as a unified system. Breaking it up would be like buying a truck a piece at a time. It's just not feasible to do that. It has to work together as an integrated whole.
The portion of the order that could have been obtained from northern contractors was valued at a little over $200,000. By not including it in the overall order, we would have lost approximately $100,000 in volume discount savings on the total order. BIP never contemplated paying that type of a premium for participation by northern businesses.