Water Department seeks OK to borrow cash

Bond would finance reservoir dam repairs, water line replacement at roundabout site

City Water Superintendent Judith Hansen is asking the Common Council authorize her department to borrow $2.3 million for work on the Cooper Lake reservoir dam and replacement of water pipes Uptown.

The latter request, for $1.5 million, would replace water mains at the site of a planned traffic roundabout at Broadway, Albany Avenue and Col. Chandler Drive. Construction of the roundabout is expected to start this fall and be completed in 2020.

“At their meeting on December 20, 2017, the Board of Water Commissioners resolved to replace their infrastructure in the referenced project, (the roundabout) contingent upon the approval of a bond for this work by the Common Council,” Hansen said in a letter to Common Council President James Noble. “Therefore, on behalf of the Board of Water Commissioners, I respectfully request the Council’s consideration of a bond in an amount not to exceed $1,500,000.”

Additionally, Hansen has requested an additional $800,000 for design work on repairs at the Cooper Lake dam in Woodstock. The Cooper Lake reservoir is the city’s primary water source.

“In 2009, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation promulgated dam safety regulations that requires dam owners to conduct a detailed engineering evaluation of their dam structures and bring them into compliance with current engineering factors of safety,” Hansen wrote. “In conformance with these requirements, the Board of Water Commissioners has completed the engineering evaluation and has determined that, while the dam is safe, it needs remediation to bring it into compliance with today’s standards.”

In all, repair work at the dam is expected to cost $6 million, Hansen has said.

The request appears on the agenda of the council’s Finance and Audit Committee, which is scheduled to meet at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 420 Broadway.

In December, the Board of Water Commissioners agreed to a budget that raises city water rates by 3 percent this year.

Hansen has said the increase is due largely to the anticipated repairs to the dam at Cooper Lake, as well as the cost of replacing water mains at the proposed roundabout site.

The Board of Water Commissioners approved the water rate increase as part of the Water Department’s 2018 budget, Hansen said.

The new budget totals $4,705,000, up from $4,576,000 in 2017.

Hansen said a typical city water customer, using 20 units per quarter, will pay $2.94 more per quarter this year than last, or $11.76 more for all of 2018. The average quarterly bill will rise from $95.07 to $98.01, she said.

“A minimum bill payer would see their bill increase from $44.67 to $46.01 per quarter, an increase of $5.36 per year,” Hansen said in an email.