The village of Fredonia’s water filtration plant is getting ready for some big changes over the next few months.

To begin with, the plant is installing a new actuator at a cost of $4,850 that will be installed by Upstate Valve and Control, also a valve recently went that hadn’t been replaced in over 50 years. “This is a valve that’s part of our system, the old one hadn’t been replaced since 1966, so it’s something that lasts for quite a long time” Trustee Roger Britz stated at the Board of Trustees meeting last week.

The village was given a single quote that placed the part at around $78,000. However, the village was able to get a model through Upstate Valve, saving the village a bit of money. “Once it’s installed we should have many more years with it. It’s just one of those valves that just happened to go,” Britz added.

The big project, however, that the plant faces is the complete replacement of one of the reactors. It is a project that the village has been planning for more than a year. “The project should have been done by now, but with everything that happened, it’s just taken longer,” chief water operator Chris Surma said. “We’re starting back up here next week with the chlorination system and the turning out of the two reactors in the plant and that’s going to involve a ton of coordination between Dunkirk and the village distribution and this is the first time we’re going to be running the plant at half capacity.”

Surma stated the contractors will begin tearing the wall out so that they can bring their demolition crews into take apart one of the reactors and from then on it’s going to be installing the new one and then rebooting the whole system and getting it to operate properly. The village budgeted money to purchase water from Dunkirk during the project and anticipates it being done by summer.