SILVER CREEK - The village of Silver Creek is moving forward in working on the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) consent order for sewer violations.
The village board recently held a special meeting to approve a contract with GHD engineering for engineer services involved with the DEC work plan.
Trustee Nick Piccolo asked if any of the required testing was done by the village in the past. Mayor Kurt Lindstrom said the village has done wet and dry testing before but has not done dye and smoke testing before.
Trustee Tom Harmon asked who would determine when that testing is done. Highway Foreman Ralph Crawford said the DEC would work with local personnel to do testing.
The contract was unanimously approved by the board.
At the previous regular board meeting GHD engineer Dave Rowlinson attended the meeting to go over the work plan for the consent order and the inflow and infiltration plan.
He said the work plan to be approved by the DEC is not due until the end of February.
He told the board the DEC is on board with the I&I plan and the village's plan to go after the most problem areas first.
He said probably 90 percent of the village's sewer problem is illegal storm water connections to the sanitary sewer. However, this is a hard problem to fix because many times homeowners do not know they are illegally connected until smoke or dye testing is done.
Piccolo pointed out the connections, which are now considered illegal, were not illegal in the past.
Crawford added during the crew's work on Lafayette Street they have been disconnecting illegal connections there.
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