Dissension regarding the future of Fredonia’s water system continues to stir up nasty confrontations and shouting matches during Village Board meetings. Previous elected or appointed leaders are some who have come forward in an attempt to stall any decision regarding water.

Why would they want it any other way? While previously serving residents in village government, these individuals put off decisions for three decades while paying for numerous water studies in the past.

Now that this board is moving forward with yet another State Environmental Quality Review study that costs $15,000, there is a sentiment from those who back the reservoir that spending these funds is wasteful. That is due to the fact that the recent LaBella report was commissioned and paid for by the county, not the village.

We’re not going to disagree with those sentiments.

But to be fair, we want to remind residents of a previous study commissioned by the village by its previous engineer O’Brien & Gere for $150,000 in 2016 while Athanasia Landis was mayor to give a report on the reservoir and improvement alternatives for the system. That study would later reveal — almost shockingly and questionably — that if the village joined the North County Water District, the cost would triple water rates.

Village officials and trustees, who never had any intention then to join the water district at that time, got what they wanted. Results that were slanted to what their beliefs were from their engineers who had a vested interest in presenting those results.

That was a much greater waste of cash that nobody questioned.

By the way, over the next nine years since that flawed study, nothing has changed for the better. Boil-water alerts have become a common occurrence, not an emergency. State University of New York at Fredonia enrollment has decreased, in part due to poor water, and very little has happened in terms of improvements to the treatment center or the reservoir.

Yet here village taxpayers and water users sit, after paying $150,000 in 2016, with nothing to show for that report.

If those criticizing this current action of spending $15,000 believe that more money is being wasted, they are not incorrect. But they are also quick to forgive and forget the boatloads of study spending — some they were connected to — of the past that has accomplished only one thing: more delays.