HENDERSON — Henderson’s sewer and water projects could have a major impact on new businesses opening up, Town Supervisor Edwin D. Glaser said.
Mr. Glaser said one of the reasons why the sewer district is so important is because some of the properties on the waterfront, or the businesses that could change hands in the hamlet wouldn’t meet required Department of Health code.
He said that Shady Pines, a restaurant that opened recently, had to do “a big dance with DOH to finally get open.”
He mentioned other businesses that will have difficulty opening until the new sewer project is completed.
“We’re like 95 or 97% now of getting approval from DEC and from EFC,” he said.
The town had a call with the Environmental Facilities Corporation recently on why they didn’t receive any money.
“We know where we went wrong there, that’s still a possibility,” he said.
There is a shortfall, Mr. Glaser said of about $6 million, which he says is being worked on by the offices of Sen. Charles E. Schumer and Rep. Elise M. Stefanik.
The town does not need to have the money in order to go out to bid, but instead just needs assurance that the money is coming.
Mr. Glaser said the project could go out to bid for the treatment center in July or August.
He said that the EFC questioned how serious the town was about getting the sewer project done.
“One of their main things in the beginning when we started talking about this and going back for approvals and funding and everything was ‘You guys talked about this 15 years ago, what makes this different now,’” he said. “I did do some little song and dance, whatever it takes to convince them that we were serious about it.”
He stressed the importance of the sewer district.
“It was time for Henderson to grow up and have its sewer system so its businesses can open up and the town can start thriving again,” he said.
Currently, Henderson residents are using containment tanks and leach fields, and if a lot of rain comes, it all flows downhill which is toward the harbor.
Mr. Glaser said the new system will be an affluent system, so the town will be putting in affluent tanks. Most residences will see about a 1,000 gallon tank, with an affluent chamber which means the liquid from the sewer tank will go into a separate chamber, with a pump that pumps it into the main sewer line.
“Our treatment center is not going to be treating the solids, but they will be treating all the liquids that come out, thus it’s kind of like a replacement of their leach field,” he said. “So you don’t have a leach field at all, you’ll be pumping all those affluents away.”
The town will be responsible for the tanks and the pumps, with residents being responsible for the power that the pumps will draw.
Mr. Glaser said the town will be paying for the sewer system through grants and financing. Currently, the town will receive a 30-year loan, which could go to 40 years due to the town applying for a hardship. The loan will be at 0%.
“Anything that we don’t get in grant money will go toward that 0% and then the user of the facility would be paying that,” he said. The yearly amount residents will pay at most $694 yearly.
“We’re looking to come in at that rate or even less, and hopefully less,” Mr. Glaser said.
Residents would pay their bill quarterly.
The sewer system would also bring more jobs, Mr. Glaser says, because of new businesses opening up.
“Whatever we can do to keep the town’s citizens employed and take them off of state aid to work in their own town without having to travel, and that is a benefit for everybody in this community,” he said.
Existing businesses that closed for the winter shouldn’t have a problem opening up, Mr. Glaser said, unless they do work on their leach field.
“There’s a few businesses that are sitting on ticking time bombs,” he said. “You just never know when a leach field is going to fail, and when you’re going to have to have someone come in and redesign it and then it has to be redesigned to current DOH standards.”
He said that the main difference residents will notice is the quality of their water.
“The only thing that the residents will notice is if their grandkids or their kids go swimming in the water in the back of their house, they shouldn’t have to worry about bacteria,” he said. “We’re taking away anything that will leach down into the harbor that could possibly get somebody sick when they’re swimming around.”
The town is also working to try and get a tower expansion to increase their ability to purify the water from the lake that it’s being drawn from.
Currently, the town has two water districts, and they’re looking to form district three, which Mr. Glaser said is already in drawings, but the legal documents aren’t there yet.
Residents that don’t use town water draw from wells.
“With the sewer system being in, at least it takes some of the fecal matter out of the water, and maybe give them a better quality of water to draw from,” Mr. Glaser said. “By giving them town water, we’re doubly assuring everybody that they’re going to have good, clean water in their systems to drink and a good septic system that’s going to work along with the town so we’re not leaching back into the water no more.”
A 30-year, low interest loan will be used for the water project.
The plan first is to finish the sewer project, then tackle the water project.
Between sewer district one, and the new water district three, Mr. Glaser said everything could be completed in three to three and a half years.
(1) comment
I think Mr. Wheeler meant to write effluents (liquid waste or sewage), and not afflunents (flowing freely or having a great deal of money).
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