Quigley: Water repair aid unlikely
Ulster town supervisor says bottling plant would ease impact
KINGSTON » Town of Ulster Supervisor James Quigley was struck the other day by comments Gov. Andrew Cuomo made to a Syracuse newspaper.
“Show us how you become economically stronger and create jobs,” Cuomo told the Post Standard newspaper. “Then you fix your own pipes.”
Quigley shared the Feb. 4 article with the Freeman.
The supervisor, a strong supporter of the Niagara Bottling Plant proposed for a site on Boice’s Lane in the town of Ulster, said Cuomo’s statement illustrates that there will be no state funding available to repair water system infrastructure in Kingston or the neighboring town of Ulster anytime in the near future. He said local officials are attempting to do something to help pay the cost of water infrastructure repair, but the plan is drawing “intense” resistance from some quarters.
“I point this out because we have a private enterprise looking to come to our community to purchase water and provide additional revenues to a public utility,” Quigley said. “Opponents keep saying we can go to the state and (get funding). The governor is saying, ‘You are on your own.’”
“The governor is very clear,” Quigley added. “Local municipalities will have to do the heavy lifting.”
Niagara Bottling Company has proposed to build a plant near TechCity, the former Kingston IBM plant, and buy water from the Kingston Water Department. Both Quigley and Kingston Water Superintendent Judith Hansen have said that at present, the only way to raise money for an estimated $18 million in needed repairs and upgrades to the city water system is from ratepayers in the two municipalities.
“There needs to be an increase in revenues to support the borrowing that is going to be needed,” Quigley said. “The current ratepayers should be in favor of new revenue from a new customer.”
Opponents of Niagara’s plan say Quigley is simply trying to make an emotional appeal.
“It is really important to go to the public with hardcore facts and not just putting up some article to get some emotional response from the public,” said Rebecca Martin, executive director of KingstonCitizens. org, a group that opposes the water sale.
Martin called it was “questionable” for Quigley to use a newspaper article to bolster arguments in support of the project, because, in her view, the context of what Cuomo was saying is unknown. She said it just doesn’t make sense to try and get the public “all worked up.”
A better approach, she said, would be a meeting among political leaders, department heads and others in Kingston, the town of Ulster, Woodstock, and Saugerties to talk about ways funding for water system repairs might be secured.
“There are more creative solutions,” Martin said. “Let’s sit down and identify what resources there are and what resources are not there.”
A more comprehensive asset management plan needs to be accomplished, “with true costs,” she said.
The Kingston Water Department has developed a proposed capital plan showing the $18 million in repairs and upgrades. Hansen has said that, if the department were to borrow the $18 million all at once, it would raise water rates by more than 32 percent.
Over the years, Hansen has said, her department has sought outside funding, but has found none.
The department is gearing up to make $6.5 million worth of improvements to the dam at Cooper Lake, the city’s reservoir in Woodstock. The project is being done to comply with state Department of Environmental Conservation rules regarding dam safety.
Kingston Alderman Matthew Dunn, D-Ward 1, who opposes the Niagara plan, said while it might be true that state funding may not be immediately available, that doesn’t mean it never will be.
Dunn, the Common Council’s majority leader, agreed that a collective get-together would probably lead to new ideas to pay for infrastructure repairs.
“The answer is not to have a bottling company idea shoved down our throats and take a significant amount of the city’s water,” Dunn said.
“We need to all sit down and have a conversation about how to address these issues. We don’t start with the solution being (the) Niagara Bottling Company.”
Quigley said he is hopeful those who support the project will become more publicly vocal in the coming weeks. The Ulster Town Board is lead agency in connection with the environmental review of the project.
“The point is, at the end of the day, when the voices are counted, the naysayers will prevail if they (supporters) do not participate in the process,” Quigley said.