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Fredonia's water system is out of compliance with state health regulations, and village and county representatives got together this week to discuss the next steps.
Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel and Fredonia Mayor Douglas Essek announced the meeting in a joint statement Thursday that spoke of "new collaborative efforts to help improve infrastructure related to Fredonia's water supply." Those efforts were not specified.
Fredonia Trustee Jon Espersen said he also attended Wednesday's meeting, along with fellow Trustee Michelle Twichell, Chautauqua County legislators from Fredonia Susan Parker and Bob Scudder, and Luis Fred, the head man at Fredonia's water treatment plant.
According to the Wendel and Essek release, "the Chautauqua County Health Department and other stakeholders" were there as well.
Espersen said the Health Department "will be presenting what they presented" at the Fredonia Board of Trustees session Tuesday.
"I think it's going to be eye-opening and I hope the public is there," he said. "In short, they want to assist us to come into compliance with (Health Department) regulations."
In September 2020, the village went through a nearly three-week boil-water order. Two more boil orders were instituted by the county Health Department in late February and June earlier this year.
A July 6 letter from the county Health Department's environmental health division received by the town of Pomfret apparently warned the municipality against using Fredonia as a water district source. Pomfret is doing a long-term water district formation project.
"The department will neither endorse, nor approve, the formation of or connection of, a water district when the source for that district is a public water supply system with documented critical violations or a significant number of non-critical violations related to the source water, water treatment plant, or water distribution system," the letter states.
Michael Ferguson, the only announced candidate for village mayor in the coming November election, said in an interview on Friday that he's consistently hearing concerns about the village's water system. "We must have as much information as possible to make the best decision moving forward," he said.
Fredonia's water department, for all intents and purposes, has been reeling for years. Improvements to keep the system in operation would likely cost more than $20 million. That's a greater amount than what it costs for upgrades to the city of Dunkirk water plant, which is the supplier to the North County Water District that serves Portland, Brocton, the town of Dunkirk, parts of Pomfret and Sheridan.
In the spring, Dunkirk Mayor Wilfred Rosas offered to fully supply the village with water. In the plan, Dunkirk would supply 1.3 million gallons of water per day to Fredonia. It would come through three connections: through the Vineyard Drive pump station the communities share, and two Route 20 linkups on either end of the village. The Route 20 infrastructure belongs to the North County Water District, but Dunkirk is the sole supplier of that.
Rosas estimated that water delivered through the Vineyard Drive line would be sold at a cost of about $3.84 per 1,000 gallons, and the Route 20 line service would be approximately $4.96 per 1,000 gallons. The village of Fredonia's current water rate is $4.95 per 1,000 gallons, which was increased in the 2023-24 village budget that was approved in April.
Editor John D'Agostino contributed to this report.