Feasibility study outlines funding challenges
A consultant is recommending that Nelsonville pursue a $6.5 million sewer system in which grinder pumps installed at 171 properties would pipe waste to a pressurized main feeding into Cold Spring’s wastewater system.
LaBella Associates’ finalized sewer feasibility study for Nelsonville, released last month, concluded that a traditional gravity-fed system costing $7.5 million was not feasible because of the hilly terrain such a system would have to traverse to connect to Cold Spring.
The firm estimated that the pumps, which would grind up solid waste collected in an underground tank on each property and pipe it to a central main, would cost $7,000 each. Their installation, and the removal of each property’s existing system, would be covered by the initial funding, but owners would be responsible for maintaining and replacing the pumps, which concerned Village Board members during a discussion of the study on Wednesday (Jan. 17). (See map.)
A third option combining gravity-fed pipes with two pumping stations — one near Main Street and Billy’s Way, the other near Bank Street and Peekskill Road — would compensate for the hilly terrain but cost $9.1 million, making it the most expensive option.
Choosing to go with pumping stations would also require buying land from “agreeable” property owners, said Mayor Chris Winward. “That in itself is not impossible, but time-consuming potentially,” she said.
Each option would replace the privately owned cesspools, leach fields and septic tanks that village residents use for waste. Because Nelsonville is located in a valley with poor stormwater drainage, those methods, if not maintained, can contaminate nearby surface and groundwater sources, according to LaBella.
Preventing that by connecting to Cold Spring’s system would send an estimated 80,000 additional gallons of wastewater each day to the village’s treatment plant, which has a capacity of 500,000 gallons and treats an average of 290,000 daily. Cold Spring already supplies the 171 Nelsonville properties with drinking water.
“This is a time bomb out here — all these cesspools,” said Thomas Campanile, a member of Nelsonville’s Village Board. “We’ve got to do something.”
LaBella’s 39-page report, available at bit.ly/nelsonville-sewer-study, also outlines the challenges Nelsonville faces in qualifying for grants to subsidize all or part of the costs.
The village’s relative wealth ($113,333 annual median household income) and the health of Foundry Brook affect how high it would score on applications for grant programs that prioritize communities that have lower incomes or have waterways that are threatened by wastewater contamination.
LaBella recommended that Nelsonville apply for funding through the state’s Water Infrastructure Improvement Act, which provides grants for drinking water and wastewater projects and awarded $378 million in December.
Winward said that the funding landscape outlined by LaBella, which also suggests the village consider short- and long-term loans, “was not as rosy as we were first told it might be.”
“I would guess, we wouldn’t be at a place of deciding what to do for a year and a half to two years,” she said. “Without knowing what the financing will look like, we couldn’t bring a final decision to the residents.”
