Plan for dam repairs may include borrowing
Lawmakers will consider authorizing $7million in borrowing as part of an effort seeking funding to fix the Cooper Lake Reservoir Dam.
City lawmakers will consider authorizing $7 million in borrowing as part of an effort seeking state funding to fix Cooper Lake reservoir dam.
Water Department Superintendent Judith Hansen said Tuesday the borrowing is part of an ongoing push by officials to obtain state funding for the dam project, which is exoect to cost $12 million. Cooper Lake, located in the town of Woodstock, is the main source of Kingston’s water.
No state funding for the project has been secured. If none is obtained, Kingston water ratepayers could see a 20 percent increase in water bills to pay for the dam’s rehabilitation.
The Kingston Common Council’s Finance and Audit Committee is to review the borrowing request on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall on Broadway. The Common Council needs to give permission to the Water Department to borrow funding.
“(The project) is divided into 3 phases: Phase 1: Temporary connection to Ashokan; Phase 2: New Intake tower and piping; Phase 3: Dam remediation,” Hansen said in a Tuesday email. “The cost of Phase 1 & 2 are expected to be $7 million. Phase 1 & 2 are eligible for funding under the State’s Water Infrastructure Improvement Act (WIIA) and we are in the process of applying for those funds.”
Hansen said the deadline for the submission in Sept. 13.
“If we are successful, we could receive up to $3 million in a grant and the balance as a low interest loan,” Hansen said. “This is a competitive process and there are no guarantees that we will be successful, but we are going to submit the application and hope for the best.”
In July, Hansen said the cost of repairing the dam at the city’s Cooper Lake reservoir had risen 140 percent from the initial estimate, and water users’ rates could rise as much as 20 percent as a result.
Hansen said the project, for which design plans are nearing completion, was now expected to cost $12 million. The cost was estimated at $5 million when the dam repair first was considered in 2014.
Hansen had said then grants would be sought to offset the cost of the dam repair. She said the Board of Water Commissioners “is looking at any and all funding opportunities, and they are hoping at least a portion of [the work] could receive some grant funding.”
“They are looking at all avenues to minimize the cost on the rate payers,” Hansen said in July. “However, if we are unsuccessful and need to obtain a loan for the entire amount, we are looking at a possible 20 percent rate increase.”
Of the dam repair cost skyrocketing from the original estimate, Hansen had said, “When the earlier estimate was done, very little detailed design work had been completed, and it (the predicted cost) was based on the conceptual design. We are now deep into the design, and ... we have taken a more detailed look at the existing structure and what would be required to bring it up to current design standards and codes.”
Also, Hansen said, the first estimate “was done about five years ago, and all costs have escalated somewhat.”
Additionally, the original estimate was “for construction only and did not include engineering services,” she said, “nor did it include any electrical for the valves and new intake structure.”
Those elements alone added about $2.5 million to the project’s cost, Hansen said.
She said the new estimate also includes 10 percent for “contingencies.”
The state Department of Environmental Conservation issued dam safety regulations in 2009 that require owners to make detailed engineering evaluations and bring their dams into compliance with current engineering standards.
While the Cooper Lake dam was found to be safe, the state said it needed improvements to comply with the new safety standards, Hansen said previously.
The $12 million estimate for the dam repair comes about five years after the Niagara Bottling company withdrew its plan to build a plant in the town of Ulster
that would have drawn water from Cooper Lake. Niagara would have paid Kingston for the water it used, and supporters of the plan
noted the income would have helped pay for repairs to the city water system’s infrastructure.
Niagara pulled out amid public opposition to the plan. Hansen said at the time that she was “disappointed” by the company’s decision “because I certainly believe we had water and that this would be a good way” to minimize rate hikes.
Opponents of the Niagara Bottling plan said the city could not afford to give up the amount of water the company wanted and that a public commodity should not be sold to a company seeking to profit from it. They also raised the issue of plastic waste resulting from the sale of bottled water and opposed Niagara’s plan to discharge wastewater into the Esopus Creek in the town of Ulster.