Proposals for North County Water District connections with Fredonia were released earlier this month.

The district’s engineers, CPL, offered one plan for a connection with SUNY Fredonia on Ring Road, and another directly with the village along Central Avenue. The proposals were distributed at the district board’s April meeting, after members requested them in March.

The direct connection with Fredonia is expected to cost significantly more than the SUNY Fredonia option.

The village interconnection has an estimated cost of $4,120,000. The largest part of that is furnishing and installing a new 12-inch water main along Central Avenue. That is estimated to cost $1,408,000.

Estimated cost for the SUNY Fredonia connection is $2,610,000. The largest cost there is also for a new water main, though in this case it would only be 8 inches wide. That’s expected to cost $720,000.

Both proposals list costs for fire hydrants, gate valves, connections to existing mains, drilling, pump stations, master meter pits and traffic control. In every category except hydrants and meter pits, the direct connection with Fredonia is seen as costlier.

Left unsaid in all of this: how to pay for it. Officials in Dunkirk, sole water supplier to the NCWD, are hoping for a series of grants.

The SUNY Fredonia option would require a new pump station on Brigham Road just inside city limits. Water would flow through existing pipes down that road to the new 8-inch line, which would be on the north side of Waldorff Road. That’s near the Chautauqua County Fairgrounds, but it’s hoped the line can run through undeveloped land to the west of the fairgrounds.

Workers would then have to drill under the Thruway and lay more piping to a new connection on Ring Road near SUNY Fredonia’s administration building.

The direct connection with Fredonia would need a pump station on Willowbrook Avenue, just east of the city’s storage tank. Existing city lines would take water from there to the new 12-inch main on Central Avenue. The main would start near the intersections of Pennsylvania and Central avenues and run due south to Birchwood Drive in Fredonia and the SUNY Fredonia entrance, connecting at those points with existing infrastructure.