The village of Fredonia has had a string of unfortunate water main breaks recently that could have happened to any municipality, according to Dunkirk’s Department of Public Works Director Randy Woodbury. In the event Fredonia’s hardship has not ended, Woodbury said the city is there to help if they need it.

“The mayor authorized me to help them in any way they request, so we’ve been on standby. They have only needed to buy water once. We’re lucky that their chief operator, Chris Surma, also works for the city, is one of our water treatment operators, so we’ve talked with him from time to time and we assured him that Mayor Rosas would like to help any way we can when they need it,” he told the OBSERVER.

Woodbury said the city provided the usual assistance repairing a line as well as providing water after the boil water notice.

“We helped them pump water into their system to help refill the tanks. That was only about five hours we provided water. Otherwise they are able to produce water and recover quickly. Hopefully it will say that way,” he added. “We’re wishing Fredonia all the best. These things could happen anywhere and it can be hard to find the problem and get it buttoned up. I have been instructed to assist them to the full extent, so we are just sort of on standby in case they need us.”

Fredonia experienced five water main breaks during the first week of October. That was followed up by another break that required customers in the village and town of Pomfret to boil their water for four days. Fredonia’s Mayor Athanasia Landis believes the village found the cause of the issues in temporarily providing water to a business on Barry Road.