City water chief seeks $7.2M bond for reservoir work
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> A plan to make state-mandated improvements to the dam and water supply intake at the city’s Cooper Lake reservoir is projected to cost about $15 million, and the Kingston Water Department needs the Common Council’s OK to borrow another $7.2 million for the project, city Water Superintendent Judith Hansen said.
Hansen told the Common Council’s Finance and Audit Committee on Wednesday that the project design is 90 percent complete. She said the Water Department previously received council approval to borrow $800,000 for the design work up to this point and another $7 million for the first two phases of the three-phase project.
“But ultimately, the last piece is the actual dam remediation,” Hansen said. “And so we think the whole project is going to be $15 million. The actual construction is $12 [million].”
The Water Department previously estimated the entire cost would be $12 million.
At Hansen’s request, the committee moved forward a resolution authorizing the Kingston Water Department to borrow $7.2 million more to cover the balance of the project’s cost. That resolution requires a vote by the full Common Council, which meets again in January 2020.
Cooper Lake, in the Woodstock hamlet of Lake Hill, is the main water supply for the city of Kingston.
The lake is fed by the Mink Hollow Creek.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation issued dam safety regulations in 2009 that require reservoir 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 agency said it needs improvements to comply with the new safety standards.
The first phase of the Cooper Lake project is to be the construction of a temporary interconnection with the Ashokan Reservoir, while the second would be construction of a new water supply intake. The third phase is the dam remediation.
Hansen said the first two phases are necessary in case a drought occurs during the project. She said the reservoir will have to be lowered 10 feet to complete the dam work. A drought during the project would trigger the need to take water from New York City’s Ashokan Reservoir, Hansen said.
The dam remediation project could begin in the spring and would take two years to complete, Hansen said. She said the Water Department hopes to receive the council’s approval for the additional bond in January so the project can move forward.
Hansen said about $2.5 million of the project cost is for engineering services.
“Which sounds like a tremendous amount of money, but when you’re going to reconstruct the dam, it’s really
important that everything gets done properly because of the downstream liability,” she said.
Hansen said an engineer would be on site every day work is done on the project and that there are costs associated with that.
Hansen also said the
Water Department still is awaiting word on its application for up to $3 million in grant funding through the state’s Water Infrastructure Investment Act to offset the cost of the project. She said the department also has applied for a $4 million low-interest loan
from the Environmental Facility Corp.’s Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund.
The funding would be used only for the first two phases of the project, Hansen said. She said there is no state or federal funding available for actual dam work.