Water District Renovation Plans
by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Town Board held a special meeting on Monday March 4 to discuss the Water District renovation project. Trying to put together detailed plans for the work of the grant project has been difficult because so many different entities have to agree to the plans and designs involved. Because the water system is a public health facility, the NYS Department of Health (and Rensselaer County DOH) has to approve all the plans; because PFOA contamination is involved, NYS DEC has to approve all plans to make sure that none of the operations involved cause any further PFOA contamination; because Taconic is paying for much of the work as part of its responsibilities under the consent agreement it signed with DEC, Taconic has to approve any of the work that it is involved in; and of course the Town must approve all of the plans, which would involve the Town Board, the Town’s environmental attorney Kevin Young, the Town’s engineer Tom Suozzo, and Water Superintendent Ben Krahforst.
Krahforst expressed frustration at the endless back and forth that has been going on between all these entities, and asked that meetings be arranged so that everyone can get on the same page and move the project forward. He mentioned four areas where agreement needs to be forged: the design of the new building, how wastewater generated by water plant operations will be handled, how tank cleaning will be handled if PFOA is found in the sediment at the bottom of the tank, and what will be done with the recirculation system recently installed by Taconic’s contractors.
The building was originally in the grant project as two separate additions – one to the GAC building to be handled by Taconic, and one to the pump house building to be built with the Town’s grant funding. But more recently, because of the inadequacy of both buildings, the Town has come to a consensus that building one new larger building with adequate space to house both the pumps and controls and the GAC filters makes more sense, but it doesn’t yet have Taconic’s agreement to a new plan.
A DEC official named Derek Thorsland has contacted the Town to find out its plans for handling wastewater generated by the water plant, such as water from yield testing of wells, or well disinfection water, or even the small overflow from the artesian wells. This water needs to have PFOA removed from it before it can be released into the environment. This is Taconic’s responsibility because the problem arises because of the presence of PFOA in this water. Taconic has been suggesting that a “frac tank” be installed for temporarily holding this water, and Taconic will truck it back to their plant for treatment, while the Town has been insisting that a second GAC filter system be installed on site to decontaminate this water.
Concerning the recirculation system, Krahforst said the system has frozen up twice this winter, and it interferes with well flow rates. He would like Taconic’s engineer to design improvements to fix these problems.
Supervisor Alan Webster and Water Superintendent Ben Krahforst made plans to get together and try to set up meetings between all the necessary participants to move this project forward.