Hampton Inn’s bill for water, sewer reduced

The Ulster Town Board has approved cutting the Hampton Inn’s quarterly water and sewer bill by more than half.

Town Board approval has been given to cutting the Hampton Inn’s quarterly $12,400.71 water and sewer bill by more than half after learning the hotel had a 1.3 million gallon water leak.

The revision, setting the new bill at $6,151.62, was authorized during a meeting Thursday.

“They had a leak in the sprinkler system,” town Supervisor James Quigley said.

The revised bill amounted to a technical adjustment, based on the water not sent to the sewer treatment plant.

“What we’re abating is the sewer charges,” Quigley said. “The water went into the ground, instead of the sewer.”

Information on the hotel’s normal amount of water use was not immediately available.

Officials said the bill was issued at the beginning of the month, with the request for a reduction made earlier last week.

“It was a leak on their part,” Quigley said. “They (were in error) because they didn’t fix the leak.”

The 81-room Hampton Inn hotel, at 1307 Ulster Ave. behind CVS, was approved by the town in 2006.

On March 21, 2017, the hotel was evacuated, 12 workers were exposed to caustic fumes and a contractor who inhaled them was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries after accidently mixing a cleaning chemical with pool water containing chlorine.

On April 2, 2017, a second evacuation was needed when an electronic testing device caught fire in a room. Six rooms were damaged in the incident, which required evacuating 150 guests who were staying in 55 different rooms, along with the approximately six staff members working in the four-story hotel.