The Board of Estimates today approved $2.5 million in fees to consultants working for the bureaus of water and solid waste, including for design work done on the East Monument Street sinkhole.

At a meeting lasting less than six minutes, the board headed by City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake awarded $1.8 million to EBA Engineering to provide “on-call” material testing and inspection services for the water bureau for the next two years.

The board also agreed to tack on $500,000 to an existing $3 million contract with KCI Technologies to provide inspection services for the city’s Quarantine/Millennium Landfill in South Baltimore.

A third consultant – Moffatt & Nichol – was paid $189,000 for design and inspection services needed to restore the collapsed storm drain tunnel that opened up a large sinkhole on East Monument Street last summer.

The cost of fixing the sinkhole has risen to $8 million, city budget director Andrew Kleine said today – or $1 million more than last fall’s estimate, which in turn was double the original $3 million estimated. (See here for detailed look at the project.)

Monument Street was reopened to traffic in December, five months after the sinkhole appeared.