Fredonia, N.Y. (WBEN) - After another boil water order this weekend, the Village of Fredonia has decided to change how it gets its water.
Mayor Mike Ferguson says the latest boil water order was different from the other seven over the past three years.
"They come down and do routine water testing. It's done on a weekly basis, and the testers went to two local businesses that serve food, tested the water, and the water came up well the way they did, the test touched the faucets of the particular facility, and it came up as having E coli," explained Ferguson in an interview with WBEN.
The other seven were the result of the treatment plant.
"Our water treatment plant is now 97-years-old, and has not been significantly updated since 1929 with a few exceptions, of some pumps, some engines, so it really has been neglected. It would be like driving a car with 200,000 miles on it and saying, should we repair the car, or should we buy a new car? Obviously, we'd be putting far more money into repairing the old car," Ferguson noted.
The Village Board voted and passed a resolution last week to go with the North County Water System through a connection with the Town of Pomfret.
"Currently, we sell water to the town, and the Town of Pomfret is creating their own water districts, three separate districts. So we would be losing them and our commercial users on the side of Pomfret within the next two years," Ferguson said. "Plus, we have a brand new hospital, $200 million hospital, that we've been waiting for for the last seven years that has broken ground already. So we need to time this so that our connection is at the same time we have a connection for the hospital, much less we have a brand new hotel.
"We have the college here as well, and several major corporations that have plants in the area. It was a tough one, but we are deciding to walk away from the reservoir, or at least not use the reservoir for our main source. And we've got a small group of protesters that are putting up a little bit of a fuss of it, but we have over 15,000 people we have got to serve with our water, and we have had less than 400 signatures on a petition. So as mayor, we have to go with the numbers game."
Ferguson says critics haven't run the numbers.
"When we say the cost, they are not including the fact that they have been asked by the county and the state 17 times to dredge the reservoir since the reservoir was created as a man-made reservoir. It has never been dredged, ever. So you have quite a build up of sentiment," Ferguson explained. "We had a local college that did a study that shows when this reservoir was dug out, it was 92-and-a-half feet deep. And we're now showing in the deepest part of the reservoir. The reservoir, it's 14-and-a-half feet deep."
He says the cost of dredging alone would be in the millions.
"The cost of a new water treatment plant is estimated between $38 and $40 million, much less than if the plant was being built. We would have no source of water until it was connected once again," Ferguson noted.
He adds there are a lot of things that have not been thought out over the course of the years.
"Now it's aging. We know this connection is going to be between $17 and $22 million. A report said it should be no more than $17.5 million. It would be easily 10 times that to have to rebuild the water system that we have in place," Ferguson said.
The village will be drawing water from Lake Erie through Dunkirk, into the North County Water System.
"It is reliable, It is clean. The Dunkirk Water Treatment plant has been upgraded in the last six years, so it can fight things like PFAs and more of the more modern things that get into your water treatment," Ferguson added. "The bottom line is they use two-and-a-half chemicals to make their water potable."
Ferguson is talking to the both state and federal agencies about funding for the process.
"We have already done our SEQR studies and environmental studies, that has been completed. So right now, it's funding the project," he said. "Once the bond was passed on Wednesday, we put in for these funds last Friday. So that's basically it. We're looking at a two-year timetable, which coincides almost perfectly with the construction of the hospital."
Ferguson adds water rates may go up shortly because of the cost of the connection, but as consumption goes up, the cost should go down below where it is today.