Dam designs expected by year’s end
Final design plans are to be completed by year’s end for a $5 million dam repair project at the city’s Cooper Lake reservoir.
Cooper Lake, which is in Lake Hill the town of Woodstock, is the city of Kingston’s primary reservoir.
Water Department Superintendent Judith Hansen said that Schnabel Engineering, which is being be paid up to $800,000 to design the state-required project, is expected to complete work by the end of December.
“Schnabel is working on the design and I expect to have final plans by the end of the year,” Hansen said in an email. “Concurrently with the design, they are working on preparing the required permits from state Department of Environmental Conservation and the state Department of Health.”
Hansen said that the $5 million estimated repair costs are likely to change as the final design plan takes shape.
“During the design process, the project costs estimates will be refined and we will seek bonding approval from the (Common) Council for the work in early 2019
with bidding to follow so
that construction can begin in spring of 2019,” Hansen said in her email.
In order for the water department to borrow money, it needs permission from
the Common Council to do so.
In early February, the Kingston Common Council gave the Water Department permission to borrow
$800,000 to pay for the design work for the Cooper Lake dam repairs.
Hansen has said the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued
dam safety regulations in 2009 that require owners to make a detailed engineering evaluation and bring their dams into compliance with current engineering
standards.
While the Cooper Lake dam was found to be safe, it needs improvement to comply with the new safety standards, Hansen has said.