Let’s talk about the Fredonia water project, which we have recently begun, to switch our water source from the village’s own reservoir to Lake Erie water purchased from Dunkirk. The project is projected to run about $13 million. So far we have received grants totaling a bit more than $7 million for it, and we are bonding the rest over a 30-year period while continuing to seek additional grants.

A small but vocal group has been screaming that this water is going to cost more than what you are currently paying for water. I agree, this is true, although I will point out that even if we did nothing the cost for your water will continue to increase as the cost of production goes up year by year.

Just as inflation raises your expenses, the village pays more for electricity, employees, chemicals to process water and repairs to the infrastructure (two recent major expenses being the chlorinator replacement and the replacement intake structure).

What they fail to take into account is the unsustainable nature of our current water system, the extreme cost of replacing it (and what do you drink while that happens) and the risk of having no water at all. We are currently operating under a consent order from the county Department of Health. Some folks will tell you that the Health Department is part of some conspiracy to force us to do what is in the county’s best interest and not our interest, but to date they offer no evidence of this other than, perhaps, their own belief. If there is proof of some conspiracy do present it, but don’t expect reasonable people to just take it on faith.

So what are we up against at our current reservoir and treatment plant? On my first visit to the plant I noted that there is a sheer cliff (of dirt, not rock) dropping into the creek less than a yard from the plant. Staff there tell me there used to be enough room there for a picnic table but it has eroded away over the years. A few more feet and it may compromise our clear well causing the catastrophic loss of the plant. Let’s call this a risk, probably low in any given year, but remember we are looking out over a long period of time.

The capacity of the reservoir. You remember how we had to go on a water conservation order last year. Since the day it was built our man-made lake has been collecting sediment. In fact the original idea of our water system was simply to have a settling pond so that the water we drew off would not be full of muck. A number of engineering studies over the years have mentioned the loss of storage capacity and recommendations for dredging go back to the 1960s despite never having been carried out. In 1988 we did raise the height of the spillway to add about 20 million gallons of capacity, since that time, based on the lowest estimated rate of sedimentation, we have lost an additional 57 million gallons of capacity. So why don’t we just dredge it out? First we would need to create access for the equipment, there is no way currently to get a dredge in there. Next, as you should be aware, we are unable to process really high turbidity water effectively, so you may be boiling as the dredging goes on. Disposing of the sediment, there are high enough levels of arsenic in our sediments that we would have to have them trucked to a hazardous waste landfill at considerable expense, and of course the cost of actually dredging, while we have not had a recent study on this I’ve seen estimates in excess of $20 million dollars just for this.

Our permit with the state allows us to withdraw up to 2.5 million gallons a day, however, a study done in 2011 by O’Brien and Gere, an engineering firm hired by the Village determined we are only able to sustainably withdraw 1.1-1.5 million gallons a day without risk of depleting the reservoir. This may not be an issue during wetter parts of the year, but as the summer progresses we may dry out again. We typically produce about 1.4 million gallons a day so we are near the top of the capacity without much room for growth.

Our treatment plant basically does two things and has some issues with both of them. First it removes sediment (turbidity) from the water. As you recall from earlier this year it can’t always handle the muck nature throws at it, resulting in an occasional boil order, and enough does get by that when we clean our clear well we have in the past stirred up enough sediment there that we had to boil water. Second, it disinfects the water using Chlorine. We struggle to keep the deleterious organic chlorine by products to safer amounts. We do not have the capability to remove chemical agents from our water, or metals, the standard often used for filtering water is activated carbon (charcoal) but our system cannot use this, frankly it was designed well over 60 years ago when the standards were different.

There are quite a number of other issues with our Water Treatment Plant, some of which can be and have been resolved or are in the process of being resolved. You can read about them in the Health Department consent order which is published on the Village website.

The dam remains listed as unsafe. When we increased the height of the spillway to gain additional water storage we reduced the safety of the dam. We have recently been awarded a FEMA grant to fund a study into how to reduce hazards created by this dam.

A final, important point. Water money is water money, wastewater money is wastewater money. Some folks will claim we can use money from water sales or wastewater treatment to reduce property taxes. This is simply not true. I do expect you will hear from them in the coming days, please just keep this in mind.

Ben Brauchler is a Fredonia trustee.