Mayor credits creek work for blocking flooding
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Water is eternally on the minds of Fredonians. Last weekend was unusual only in that it came through a deluge from the sky.
Mayor Michael Ferguson called it "a very strange, weird weather weekend" during comments to open a Fredonia Board of Trustees workshop. He said it "kept our police, fire and DPW very, very busy and on their toes."
The mayor credited "some of the remediation work that was done on Canadaway Creek in the last year for part of the reason why we didn't see any substantial flooding. We still have issues with the Water Street bridge as we were told about two years ago we would be getting a steel deck bridge put up and get rid of the center piece. To date, that concrete center piece is an issue."
Ferguson went on, "We also want to include water and wastewater because they were watching the levels go up and down during the course of this as well, and it could have made things uncomfortable."
Luis Fred, water plant chief operator, said the village water plant and reservoir held up well in the recent heavy rain.
He sought a new part for an intake at the plant during the meeting. It would cost about $12,400. He said it would complete a project started last year.
"We still have to keep (the plant) operating for at least two years," Ferguson said. The village is planning to shut down the plant and acquire water from the North County Water District, but that won't be ready to go for years.
"I just want to make sure we're not investing in something we're taking out of service," Trustee Tim Mulholland said. Ferguson mentioned that the intake part will satisfy part of the health department's consent order about the plant.
"I agree with you, Tim," replied Trustee LeeAnn Lazarony. "We had to put the chlorinator in and that cost a lot of money. We had to do that or we wouldn't be able to provide any water. We put millions and millions into the water treatment plant, and then you think about that we're just going to take it out of service and it's just going to be locked up and it just kind of goes, 'Ugh, that's a lot of money.'"
Wandel replied, "Another way to look at it is, we don't do these things and the village either has numerous additional boil waters or no water, what's going to be the cost then?"
Trustee Ben Brauchler later pushed for more action on plans for a new water line in the area of the Central Avenue-Temple Street intersection. A catastrophic water break near the area led to a boil order in January.
"We haven't done anything about it for a while," Brauchler said. "I think we were going to look into getting another firm to quote on it, and I think we need to move ahead with getting it done. Get that quote and get some planning done for that -- because it’s still there!"
Wandel said he had an engineering company contact he would talk to about the project. "You're right, we can't just drop that," he said to Brauchler.
"If we let it go, we're going to be digging it up again," Brauchler replied.