OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Fredonia Department of Public Works Director Scott Marsh looks on as LaBella’s Matt Higgins, at center and on the TV, talks about his firm’s study of the village water system. Marsh was one of several people who sat in the hall with the meeting room filled to capacity for the high-interest topic.

The LaBella engineering firm’s report on Fredonia’s water system laid out three options: Keep the reservoir-and-dam infrastructure but make major repairs, decommission it and get water from the city of Dunkirk and possibly wells, or draw down the reservoir and get water from Dunkirk and possibly wells.

The latter option was apparently LaBella’s preference, but here’s a look at all three, going off the firm’s presentation to the village Board of Trustees.

Officials promised the report will go on the village’s website – with security-related redactions – after attorneys from Fredonia’s firm, Webster Szanyi, go over it. As of Friday morning, the report wasn’t posted.

The three options:

– OPTION 1: Keep the current infrastructure but make significant upgrades across all facets of the system.

Don Lucas of LaBella noted the dam is considered a high hazard dam and does not meet state requirements for drawdown volume. The current intake structure would reach the reservoir’s low outlet in 36 days, far short of the state-required 90% drawdown in 14 days.

Spillway capacity would not handle a potential maximum flood, he added. The dam itself also fails on several stability calculations, he said.

To keep the dam, “construction of a new dam that meets these requirements, meets the expectations of a modern safe water retaining structure” would be necessary, he said.

The treatment plant needs work, too, according to LaBella’s presentation. It needs a third clarifier, chemical storage and feed improvements, piping and process control revamping, and site improvements (including a shore-up of a steep bank nearby).

The reservoir would be “a large-scale construction effort,” Lucas said. The spillway would be removed and replaced and the dam crest could be raised slightly.

“It would remove the liability that is a dam in, quote, unsound condition with the DEC and get you back in good terms with the DEC in terms of the dam,” Lucas said.

LaBella’s Matt Higgins said later “the big pro” for this option is that Fredonia would retain complete control of its water system. However, there would be a high cost and regulatory burden.

The total project cost for this option: $34.3 million.

– OPTION 2: Decommission the dam.

Lucas said decommissioning the dam would be “a lengthy process” involving numerous engineers and government agencies.

The dam would be removed and the reservoir “would be (restored) to a more natural state… a very intentional restoration of natural habitats for local fish and wildlife,” he said.

“The big note there… is Fredonia would relinquish that water as a water source,” Lucas added. “Realistically, it’s not likely you’d ever be able to build a dam there ever again.”

This option would be even more costly than the first one: $38.1 million.

– OPTION 3: Draw down the dam.

Lucas called this “kind of a middle ground, a little bit.” He said, “A lot of the areas where the dam fails in terms of stability and capacity are related to the amount of water volume upstream of the dam, and how it would handle additional water flow in a flood event.

“it could be engineered and looked at as to how far would you have to draw down… that water level to make the calculations come out favorable.”

There would still need to be “significant improvements” on the reservoir. However, “there’s a very large cost savings” compared to decommissioning or replacing the plant.

The village would be left without a water source. However, Higgins said that when LaBella employees were speaking with village officials about starting the study, “There was an observation made that several communities nearby have very viable groundwater supplies that are then treated and pumped into their distribution system.”

This led to a LaBella hydrogeologist studying regional geology and identifying sites where wells could be feasible for Fredonia water supply.

Three sites were found south of the reservoir, in a deep, confined, sand and gravel aquifer. Another is in a 1 to 2 square mile area east of the village in a glacial deposit.

“Everything points to the very viable possibility that average day demand, 1.32 million gallons, could be available by drilling a groundwater supply. Higgins said. However, he noted, “zero field investigations have been done.”

He said wells were “not presented as a true equal alternative” until such studies were done. Those would take about six months to get results, he said.

The water could be run to a new storage tank on Spoden Road. The troubled Webster Road pump station could be decommissioned. The Spoden Road tank could be gravity-fed whereas the Webster Road tank must pump water uphill.

If the village chose to get water from Dunkirk, it would need another line between the municipalities. The village currently has a direct connection with Dunkirk along Main Street Extension to a Vineyard Drive pump station. There are also two indirect connections, with the Dunkirk-supplied North County Water District at both ends of the village on Route 20.

However, the Vineyard Drive pump station shared by the two municipalities “is tied in not to a main trunk line to the city, but… a branch line, a smaller diameter pipe. It’s as if the pumps were trying to suck through a straw, so to speak,” Higgins said.

In addition, the station must be started manually and it takes half an hour to get online.

In this scenario, LaBella suggests a new 12-inch line from Dunkirk’s tank on Willowbrook Avenue to the village, on the SUNY Fredonia campus. A new Fredonia pumping station – perhaps adjacent to Dunkirk’s on Willowbrook Avenue – is envisioned.

Another alternative would require storage tanks at the water treatment plant and on Billie Boulevard.

The third option is the least costly of the trio: $26 million. An envisioned annual cost of $2.96 million for getting water from Dunkirk would be made up by lower capital costs than the other options.

That $2.96 million could be halved if the village established its own groundwater wells.

“This would keep some village supply over its public water system and also reduce the cost of buying water from Dunkirk,” Higgins said.