As Town Supervisor I would like to thank the Village of Montgomery Board for approving a resolution to proceed with an engineering feasibility study that will evaluate the options for processing wastewater from the Village and Town of Montgomery.  The study will review the pros and cons of the Town replacing their wastewater plant independently with the Village upgrading their wastewater treatment plant independently and the option of a joint project, whereby the Village wastewater treatment plant would be upgraded to serve both the Village and Town’s wastewater needs for up to 30 years.

The feasibility study has been discussed for approximately 3 1/2 years.  The discussions started when I was the Village Mayor and Brian Maher was the Town Supervisor and continued with discussions when I was still the Mayor and Ron Feller was the Town Supervisor.  During my recent tenure as Town Supervisor, the discussions continued briefly with Mayor Hembury and Deputy Mayor Andolsek.  There was also discussion with former Trustees Kevin Conero and Randy Wilbur and Trustee Randi Picarello as well as incoming Trustees Cynthia Nokland and Stephen Imbriani (After election and before they took office).  This has been a long thought out process.

Also, the proposed Sheffield Apartments project (Sewer District 3) is NOT proposed to be connected to the Village of Montgomery wastewater collection system.  The developer is proposing their own wastewater treatment plant which would be owned and operated by the Town once dedicated to the Town after completion.  The Town has preliminarily agreed to accept dedication of the treatment plant to help ensure its proper operation and maintenance.

In terms of good planning practices and realizing that wastewater treatment plants are only upgraded in capacity approximately every 20-30 years, we have planned for future development and the connection of existing developments, mainly focused on Bracken Road, Route 208, and County Route 99 (Neelytown Road) corridors.

The Town of Montgomery has initially requested that the feasibility study assume that the Town of Montgomery will need 500,000 gpd of the capacity in the next 20-30 years. However, depending on the results of the feasibility study, the Town may reduce the volume of flow to less than 500,000 gpd and consider other options available to the Town or future potential projects.

The Town felt it was time to retain a wastewater engineering consultant to review the alternatives, provide the pros and cons of the alternatives and provide the Town and Village for costs of the alternatives.  We expect that the feasibility study would be completed in late summer or early fall.  Once the study is received and reviewed by the respective Boards, I would suggest a joint public meeting with both the Village and Town Boards where the engineering consultant would present the findings of the study and answer questions from the community and both Boards.

There is no pre-determined outcome of the study.  The Town Board is open to all alternatives.  The study will provide the facts and figures for each board to independently draw their own conclusions.

The Town Board understands that if both Boards agree that, if a joint wastewater treatment is in the best interest of Village and the Town, the Town would be willing to pay a premium cost to the Village as a host community both in terms of the capital improvements (construction costs) and daily operation maintenance costs.  These extra premium Towns costs have been preliminarily discussed over the last 3 1/2 years with different Mayors and Supervisors.  These costs would only be finalized if it is determined by both the Village and Town Board that a joint wastewater treatment plant is in the best interest of both the Town and the Village.

In summary, we are only at the beginning of the process. Once both municipalities receive the feasibility, we will schedule a joint meeting with Village and Town and the public where the engineer will present the findings and answer questions from the Boards and the public.  The boards will then, at a later date, make their own independent decisions on the best way to proceed to address their wastewater needs.

L. Stephen Brescia
Town Supervisor