(Credit: Gordon Woodworth, 2022)
Lake George Town Supervisor Dennis Dickinson and wastewater treatment plant Supervisor Tim Shudt stand in the new $24.6 million plant.
Lake George Village’s state-of-the-art, $24.6-million wastewater treatment plant is online.
“Our plant is working and it’s working very well,” Mayor Robert Blais told FoothillsBusinessDaily.com. “We turned the valve today transferring the sewage from the old plant to the new plant. We have been operating it for the past week with clean water to make sure everything runs properly."
The new plant, off Birch Avenue west of Route 9, was built after the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued a consent order in 2014 that required an upgrade.
“This is a big day for Lake George. This was a huge commitment, $24.6-million to keep the lake clean, and we’ve had excellent cooperation from Warren County, which came in with a pledge of $750,000 over the next 10 years.
New York State kicked in $17.4-million of the cost. The federal government contributed $500,000. Local taxes pay the remaining $5.95 million.
Officials say it will reduce the amount of nitrates and prevent further pollution of Lake George. Nutrients entering the lake can cause harmful algal blooms, which have already started to threaten the water quality of Lake George and can be poisonous to humans.
Lake George had its first recorded HAB, as the harmful blooms are called, in November 2020. It has had smaller ones since then. Towns around the lake have been working to keep phosphates and nitrates out of the lake. This has often centered around septic systems at individual properties on the lakeshore and now at larger municipal systems. Bolton Landing just won a state grant to increase the capacity of a woodchip wastewater filter that they successfully tested over the past 27 months.
[Read more about HABs and efforts to fight them, here.]
“I can’t say enough about the contributions of our chief operator Tim Shudt," Blais said. "This is his baby. He has watched this project from start to finish for seven years."
Shudt, who has run the plant for 10 years, said it’s “very fulfilling” to have the new plant up and running.
“It’s an important project. It works great, and it’s going to protect the lake for years to come," he said.
The original plant was built in the 1930s and “was the biggest load contributor of nutrients and contaminants to the lake,” Lake George Waterkeeper Chris Navitsky said. The waterkeeper program is part of the Lake George Association.
“With the new plant, the Village has set a new standard, and all we can do is thank Mayor Blais and operator Tim Shudt for this because they are really stepping up to help Lake George,” Navitsky said.
New York State launched a $65-million program to fight harmful algal blooms in 2018. Lake George is one of the lakes being studied.
In a 2020 statement, Eric Siy of the Lake George Association said, “Our environment and economy are two sides of the same coin, and Lake George is the common currency that will either accrue or decline in value depending on the actions we take now.”