Water board advances $5.7M dam project
The city Board of Water Commissioners has agreed to move forward with a $5.7 million project to address concerns that the Cooper Lake dam is a high-hazard structure that doesn’t meet standards.
City Water Superintendent Judith Hansen said at a board meeting Friday that engineers will be asked to submit a project schedule for the board to review at its Nov. 8 session.
“I expect the design will be [submitted] in 2018, and the construction [will be] in 2019,” Hansen said.
She said the city should be able to get a low-interest loan from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to cover about $2.7 million of the cost.
Cooper Lake is in the town of Woodstock and is the main water source for the city of Kingston.
The work is to include upgrading the dam’s spillway, which became out of compliance with safety standards when state Department of Environmental Conservation regulations were revised.
Hansen previously said state officials could issue a consent order for the work to be done if the city does not take action.
The plan calls for spending $1.7 million for dam repairs, $1.3 million for spillway improvements and $2.7 million for piping and infrastructure improvements.
The city has not needed to use the existing spillway often because Cooper Lake is filled by a piping system that
draws water from the Mink Hollow Stream rather than being directly fed by creeks.
While there is no immediate risk to the dam, Kingston officials say they are concerned that if the dam did break, the contents of Copper Lake would pour into the Sawkill Creek, which travels through the towns of Woodstock, Kingston and Saugerties before emptying into the Lower Esopus Creek, which empties into the Hudson River in Saugerties.
There are no current plans to increase the capacity of the reservoir, which currently is 1.2 billion gallons, Hansen said. Consultants have said that would require raising the levy around the lake by up to 5 feet.
“The lake is not going to hold one drop more water than it does ... at full capacity right now,” Hansen said. “In the future ... five feet is the maximum we could raise it without having to move [state Route] 212.”