Board Schedules New Public Hearing On Water Project
by Alex Brooks
A public hearing was held on Wednesday August 1 on the Petersburgh Water District Repair and Renovation Project. The grant application for that project, which will be written by Tom Suozzo and his company Cedarwood Engineering, is due September 7, but Water District committee member Heinz Noeding said some preliminary application materials are due at the end of August.
The Town has sent out an income survey to members of the Water District which is needed as part of the application materials, and has asked that those be returned ASAP. The survey is confidential – neither name nor address of the respondent is asked for. It asks for only two things – household annual income for 2017, and number of people in the household. To be valid, the survey is supposed to have responses from 84% of the Water District households, so the Water District is hoping to get a response from nearly everyone. The results of the income survey are used to determine eligibility for low interest or no interest loans.
Petersburgh Supervisor Alan Webster said updated figures have recently been received from Taconic about the cost of the parts of the project that Taconic has done or has agreed to do. When these figures were updated the overall estimated cost of the project increased from $1,075,500 to $1,239,000. Because the notices about this public hearing had said the cost of the project is $1,075,500, another public hearing must be held with information available in advance showing the updated figures. A new Public Hearing on the Water Project and the grant application for it was scheduled for Monday, August 20 at 6:30 pm.
The grant program for water infrastructure projects provides an outright grant for 60% of the project and requires 40% of it to come from local funds. State officials are telling Petersburgh that the funds that Taconic has spent or has agreed to spend on the Water District facilities will be counted as part of the 40% local match.
Webster said at the new project total of $1,239,000, the program would offer an outright grant of $743,400, and require a local contribution of $495,600. Webster said the parts of the project that Taconic has either paid already or has agreed to pay come to $472,500, so if all of the work that Taconic has done or has agreed to do is accepted as part of the project, the Water District would only have to pay $23,100 towards the project to make up that difference. In addition, Taconic has agreed to pay the debt service for 15 years on up to $60,000 of Water District debt taken on for this project.
Petersburgh’s environmental attorney Kevin Young said the Town doesn’t know for sure if the grant funders will accept all of the expenditures made by Taconic on the Water District as part of the project, but he said when a grant is awarded, the funders will give a firm determination about what Taconic expenditures will be accepted, and if less of those expenditures are accepted the Town and the Water District at that point can make a decision about whether to scale back the project or take on some debt to get all the items done.
Young also said that the funding agencies for this grant require that the project be treated as a “Type 1” action under the State’s environmental protection (SEQR) law. The Town has declared itself the lead agency under SEQR, and unless any of the involved State or County agencies object, the Town will be the lead agency. Young anticipates that the Town will issue a “Negative Declaration” at its August 20 meeting concerning the environmental impacts of the project, and will fill out a long-form EAF to provide what he called “a reasoned elaboration” of its reasons for that determination.