Fredonia and the town of Pomfret are moving ahead on a shared water tank, village Trustee Jon Espersen said this week.

“The engineers (LaBella) are ready to prepare an update to their report of November 2023 to include an evaluation of interconnecting with the North County Water District,” he said during his report time at a Board of Trustees meeting.

“In addition, they will be preparing a system hydraulic model to better understand the existing hydraulic conditions, and model the system hydraulics of all alternatives in their report. This will be used, among other things, to optimize the size of the new shared storage tank,” Espersen continued.

“The cost of the proposed work is $70,000 … we met with area representatives at the county and state levels, they are extremely optimistic they will be able to fund the entire study as we previously discussed,” he said.

“Additionally, talks with the Chautauqua County Department of Health revealed the village does not have to demolish the water treatment plant if we choose another water source. We have to ensure the water from the reservoir is not entering the plant, we have to empty the clear well, remove chemicals, and make minor adjustments — along with joining the town in building a water tower. Millions of dollars in savings will be realized.”

During his own report, Mayor Michael Ferguson said he met Aug. 26 with county, state and Town of Pomfret officials over the proposal.

“Being a trustee, I, for one, would like to know of these meetings… I really don’t like being shut out of knowing what’s going on. I would like to have a report next time,” Trustee Michelle Twichell said. “I really think it’s vital we’re kept up in this information.”

Earlier in the meeting, former Trustee James Lynden continued his campaign to keep Fredonia’s water independent.

Lynden criticized county Health Department water specialist Natalie Whiteman’s recent letter to the village, calling it “a lot of conjecture.” He said before Whiteman was involved, a previous Health Department board “sent a letter to the village that stated that we were sufficient where we were, if we were to add another storage tank or the connections to Dunkirk. … the county in the summer of 2019, approved the expansion to the North County Water District on Route 20. It’s still not complete.”

Lynden suggested taking “a better look” at raising the reservoir dam wall to store millions of gallons more of water. By then well over his allotted three minutes, he questioned why there were discussions about closing the reservoir at a previous workshop. At that point, Espersen and Ferguson told Lynden his time was up, and he sat down.