The Queensbury Town Board and their consultant C.T. Male Associates say that it will take up to three years and $5.9 million to $6.5 million to bring the town’s public water system to the Jenkinsville neighborhood where contaminated water has been found.
The neighborhood in Eastern Queensbury would become part of the Queensbury Consolidated Water District.
[Read our extensive coverage of the water issue, here.]
Consolidation would provide public water to Jenkinsville and other eastern areas that do not currently have public water service, as well as provide fire protection to the entire area with the installation of fire hydrants, according to Queensbury Supervisor John Strough.
“We are in the exploratory phase. No decisions or commitments have been made,” Strough reassured a few dozen residents who attended the town meeting Monday evening April 17.
One optional route would run north on Ridge Road from Haviland Road to Stonehurst Drive, north to East Sunnyside Road and into the Jenkinsville neighborhood.
The second route would go from Ridge Road to Sunnyside Road to the Jenkinsville Town Park and then to the Jenkinsville neighborhood.
For property owners who choose to accept town water over their private well water, the annual cost would be anywhere from $400 to $575. For those who do not accept town water, they still incur an annual cost about $145 to $320. Traditionally, it is the responsibility of the property owners to pay to bring town water to the development.
“These cost estimates do not reflect state or federal funding, which, if received, could reduce costs,” said Strough, and he added later that people outside the Jenkinsville neighborhood will not be required to connect to the town water system. Given the contamination of the Jenkinsville water, homes there will be connected.
Consolidating the water districts would result in savings on engineering, construction, maintenance, and operating costs over the long term, Strough added.
John McDougall of Stonehurst, about a mile from Jenkinsville, peppered the town board with questions about plans to test the wells in his neighborhood. Other neighbors who spoke agreed that they did not feel obligated to put up with the hassle and cost of joining the Queensbury Consolidated Water District if their water is not contaminated.
Strough was unaware of plans to test the water anywhere but in Jenkinsville, he said.
Anthony Bollasina from the Department of Environmental Conservation said the state is still unsure if the levels of contamination in the closed and capped landfills are causing harm to humans. The DEC is still working on a deep study, or what is called the "site characterization," of the town's landfill that was closed and capped off decades ago.
The study is intended to learn if the contaminants in some residential wells found in wells downhill from the landfill are coming from one or more of the landfills. This could help determine who would pay for the clean-up or the water system extension, officials have said in the past. The town owned one landfill in that area, and private companies owned others. FoothillsBusinessDaily.com was the first to report that the DEC tested private wells in late 2020 and early 2021 and found 1,4 Dioxanes and PFOA in some residential private wells in the neighborhood.
The DEC started the site characterization in June of 2021.
“We evaluated the data from our site characterization last year and unfortunately we did not have enough information to determine if the site poses a threat to human or environmental health,” Bollasina said.
Bollasina and his crew will work throughout the spring and summer to drill and analyze the groundwater for further contamination. “There is evidence of contamination, but the levels of the contaminants are very low,” Bollasina concluded.
Strough said the town will continue to consider options.
“The town board will refine the options and consider choosing an optimal route. A map, plan, and report on the proposed water district will be prepared and a public hearing held.”
The town board is looking at a design and construction timeline of at least 2-3 years.