Fredonia village Trustee Paul Wandel

Many in Fredonia have clamored for more information from trustees on their dealings with the village water system. Trustee Paul Wandel offered about as much detail as anyone could want during this week’s board meeting — and in a commentary included in this weekend’s edition.

“We must make very wise decisions, aggressively pursuing available state and federal grant funding, working with adjacent communities inter-municipally, sharing services, to name a few,” he writes when discussing the past and future in the commentary on Page A4. “All will help to improve and optimize our village government functions.”

Additionally, Wandel disclosed that he and the rest of the village “water committee” — Trustee Jon Espersen and Mayor Michael Ferguson — met Aug. 5 with LaBella Associates and Chautauqua County Health Department officials. Discussion included:

— “Mapping the logistics and timelines of the Alternative 2 track,” as Wendel put it. That is basically an insider’s way of saying they looked at a long-term plan to acquire water from the North County Water District and decommission the village reservoir and treatment plant.

— The status of the water treatment plant chlorinator upgrade project. LaBella will now pursue contractors. LaBella has also encouraged the village to pre-purchase the chlorinator pump for $20,000 and a sodium hypochlorite storage tank for $20,000, because of timeline concerns and long lead times for construction.

The next day, Aug. 6, Wendel said he toured both the village and the city of Dunkirk water treatment plants with Democratic trustee candidates Christine Cruz Keefe and Leeann Lazarony. “Each tour lasted about one hour and was led by the plant supervisors,” he said. “The objective of the tours was to provide a close-up look at the operations at each plant and to give (the candidates) insight to best evaluate the operations and processes.”

Wandel outlined a third straight day of water system activity, stating he called a meeting with Espersen and Ferguson for Aug. 7. “The objective of this meeting was to communicate water project details in regards to our alternative options along with corresponding timing and dates,” he said. “The one-hour meeting was helpful to ensure the water committee team was effectively communicating.”

On Aug. 11, Wandel said he conducted a one-hour phone meeting with LaBella engineers Oliver Sugerman and Tim Zuch. “The objective was to identify and specify BU generator requirement(s) for the village water treatment plant,” he said. “The goal is to replace the existing rental generator with a pre-owned unit that the village would own, and eliminate rental costs which are currently ongoing for about two years.”

He said it would require a load study to specify correct equipment sizing, followed by a search of the marketplace. Three quotes would be required for the equipment purchase.

Finally, Wandel continued his personal review of water treatment plant operations Aug. 13 with main plant operator Luis Fred.

“This meeting was the second, to kick off my standard operating procedure project for supporting the supervisor to have in place a complete set of standard operating procedures and process policies launched for all water treatment plant activities,” Wandel said. “I am estimating another two to three weeks for completion of this project.”