Officials seek property for new water tank

Town Board members have approved making an offer for purchase of property adjacent to the site of the Port Ewen Water District storage tank.

At a meeting last week, councilmen said they hope to construct a replacement tank with a capacity of 2 million gallons.

“The existing (tank) was constructed in 1975 and was repainted in 1995 and it’s coming up on (the end of) its useful life before it needs to be repainted again,” district Superintendent Don Kiernan said.

Officials said the projected cost of repainting the tank is $1.5 million, while constructing a new tank is expected to cost $1.7 million. “It’s a no-brainer right there,” Kiernan said.

“A lot of companies don’t do this anymore,” he said. “Basically, they get inside the tank and sandblast it and repaint it ... and it’s very expensive. There used to be a lot of companies that did this kind of work, but there aren’t anymore.” Officials declined to say how much they planned to offer for the property. Information on the size of the parcel, which is owned by the D’Anna estate, off U.S. Route 9W, was not immediately available.

“It’s physically up on top of a hill behind Lake Shore Villas,” Kiernan said. “It is the highest spot in the water district.”

The replacement tank would be the same size as the existing tank, at 93 feet in diameter and 40 feet tall.

“We effectively have four days of storage in that tank,” Kiernan said.

“About two years ago, we did an engineering report,” he said. “Eventually, the tank is going to need to be repainted, probably in the next three to four years, so the first step is to figure out what type of tank we’re going to be putting there, how much it’s going to cost, acquiring the property, doing some soil boring (so) foundation designs can be done based on that work and putting the tank up.”