Officials urge state to remove Hudson Valley Water Company over service failures
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger and town officials want the state Public Service Commission to start proceedings to remove the owners of the Hudson Valley Water Company, Inc. and install a single operator in response to the company’s ongoing service failures, according to her office.
Metzger said town supervisors from the company’s service area, including Hurley Town Supervisor Michael Boms, Olive Town Supervisor Jim Sofranko, Rosendale Town Supervisor Jeanne Walsh, and Saugerties Town Supervisor Fred Costello, have signed on to a letter penned by Metzger and filed with the Department of Public Service.
Ulster County and state legislators also signed on to the letter in support.
“For far too long, Hudson Valley Water Company customers have been plagued by service interruptions, poor communication, and the company’s outright failure to follow its own Commission-approved Standard Operating Procedures and Emergency Plan,” Metzger said in a statement. “It is unacceptable to leave hundreds of Ulster County residents with no access to safe running drinking water for days at a time, and it is high time for the Public Service Commission to find a new qualified operator to take over and operate this critical service.”
Hudson Valley Water Company, Inc., operates five pumping and distribution systems throughout Ulster County, including in Mount Marion, High Falls, Pine Lane-Hurley, West Hurley, and Boiceville, Metzger’s office said.
After a system failure began on Dec.16, the Boiceville system was left
without drinking water service for nearly a month, her office said.
“This extended outage is the latest in a long record of outages, service interruptions, and poor customer service, and demonstrates the company’s inability to follow its PSC-approved Standard Operating Procedures and Emergency Plan,” Metzger’s office said in a statement. “The company’s failures have repeatedly resulted in officials having to step in over the years to ensure residents were properly notified of issues, including outages, boil water notices, service interruptions, and the provision of potable water during a system failure.”
These issues were the basis of customer complaints about Hurley and Mount Marion systems, which prompted a Department of Public Service Investigation in 2019-2020. In June 2022, then County Executive Pat Ryan, together with state Sen.Michelle Hinchey, D-Saugerties, and former Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, held a public hearing on HVWC’s request for a 20.6% rate increase, drawing residents from all five systems to demand service improvements.
The company was granted just a 2.8% rate increase, due in good part to numerous complaints by residents and officials, and the company’s failure to comply with commission orders, the office said.
“Access to clean water is a constitutional right in New York,” Hinchey said in a statement. “Despite our repeated interventions as elected officials to safeguard this right, the Hudson Valley Water Company has consistently violated it, leaving our residents without drinkable water for years.”
Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha, D-Esopus, added that the “Hudson Valley Water Company has yet again left my constituents without drinkable water for weeks while seeking multiple double-digit rate increases.”
“Over the past year I’ve met with community groups, and county and local elected officials to figure out how we can bring immediate relief and longterm solutions to all those who have been affected,” Shrestha said.
The local officials are echoing those complaints.
“The inability of the Hudson Valley Water Company to provide safe and reliable potable water was extremely stressful for our residents in Boiceville over the holiday season,” said Sofranko.