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1988-08-25 SP 172 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING AUGUST 25, 1986 7:20 P.M. TOWN BOARD MEMBERS Stephen Borgos-Supervisor Marilyn Pote117a-founrilman Roriald Mrrnlne'i-Councilman Betty Monahan-Councilman MEMBERS ABSENT George Kurosaka-Councilman _ GUESTS: Representatives of Rist Frost Pledge of Allegiance led by Town Clerk Darleen M. Dougher COUNCILMAN MONTESI-Opened the meeting - Discussion regarding the proposed North Queensbury Sewer District Turned the meeting over to Rist Frost Mr. Thomas Nace-Project Manager for Rist Frost Assoc. Introduced E. J. Knopf and Wayne Gannett Project Engineers.—The purpose of this meeting is to bring the public lip to date on where we stand with the North Queensbury Sewer Study. I would like t.o review the scope of services, background of where we stand and an in-depth review of what we have done. Scope of Services- 1. Define limits of service for the area to be served. (used map) 2. Calculated the present and future population of the area 3. Estimate of waste water flow After this was done, we looked at the collection system that we had, designed in the late 70's to serve the area and updated the collection system to take care of the places that were constructed since then and conform to different ways that we might serve the area, also brought up the construction costs estimates up to cull eent dollars. We have looked at alternative ways of taking the sewage and treating it or taking it someplace else to be treated, ... For each alternative we have gone through a project cost estimate...we still have to do the operation and maintenance costs to go along with the alternatives. We are looking into various aid programs to assist in funding the system. The last thing we will do will be to generate cost that would be indicative what each individual home owner would have to pay for the system and present the final information to the public. Detail of what has been done-Reviewed the area to be covered-used map, used both public input from the 11,,t informational meeting and input from the Town Board to establish a possible serviced area. Generally that area is everything north of Route 9L between there and the lake shore that encompasses all of the Lake George Shore Line that lies in the Town of Queensbury. Noted that a lot of information that was put together in the 70's was used in this project. Introduced E. J. Knopf. E. J. Knopf-A recent count of homes in the area came to 837 residential units. We made the assumption that half of the units are year around permanent residents, we did that by looking a previous census information in the 1970 census 15% of the homes were year round in 1980 that percentage was up to 32% so we made the logical assumption that into 1990 half of the homes would be year around residences. Census was also used to determine household population ratio the number of people per home, 1970 3.19 people per house hold in 1980 the ratio went down to 2.5, that shows a trend toward retirement homes. We feel that with development pressures in this area that trend will stop and reverse itself. For the purposes of this study we used- 3 people per house hold, to determine population. We have arrived at a figure of 1,256 people living in North Queensbury in the study area year around. We also reviewed the summer peak population which the sewer system will have to be designed to handle...the peak being 4200 people, the number of people in the study area on a summer peak... Regarding sewage flow...75gal. per person per day that yields 315,000 gallons per day then add in the commercial properties 30,000 per day the total flow being 350,000 per day... Introduced Wayne Gannett 173 Wayne Gannett-Spoke on ways to treat sewage in the North Queensbury area and the costs. The are two options 1. transport it to a treatment plant outside of the basin, the logical place being the Glens Falls Treatment plant 2. collect the I ewage and treat it at a treatment plant site within the Lake George Basin which N4� depends on the a fare amount of land. 1. Transport sewage-(maps) Two route possible 1. Ridge Road 2. Bay Road The Ridge Road alternate would involve collection sewers within the district, gravity sewers, grinder pumps, pressure sewers all required due to the hilly nature and Lho high ground water and bed rock once r•eachinq a central collection point the :r•w,rrlr• would hr• pnngrrd by a Inrv.e main to a point north n1 route 149 whvr•c! I.hory would be a short section of gravity sewer which would discharge to a pump station which would discharge down Ridge Road and continue by gravity to a central point. (slaps) show both routes going to the Meadowbrook Road area in the Quaker Road Sewer Dist. from there on there seems to be adequate capacity to carry on to the City System....in the event of future residential/commercial development along the corner of Ridge Road and Route 149 that area could be picked up as well... Bay Road-Shorter route would start with a pump station at the north end of Bay Road at Dunhams Bay and continue by a force main pressure sewer to a point several hundred feet north of the Town Offices and continue by gravity sewer down Bay Road to a pump station. The Ridge Road alternative is longer but would allow additional areas to be picked up, where the Bay Road alternate would not allow anything to be picked up because of the farce main situation... ihird possibility-We have recently been engaged by the Village and Town of Lake George to examine sewage options...one possibility to transport sewage down the Route 9 corridor through Queensbury to the City System. One follow through for that would be to tie in North Qsby. to the Village and Town and then all three transport into a larger system which would spread the cost out, that will be discussed latter on. Tire Second option would be to treat the sewage within the basin and not send it to the City Plant. We have looked at what would be required for that alternative, the standards have not been finalized by the DEC it is our guess the discharge standards for any treatment in the Lake George Basin will involve secondary treatment...air -ration plant with nutrient removal, a conventional treatment plant would probably - �--- meet that criteria. The other part of the treatment requirement that we anticipate that there would be no discharge to any surface water, the discharge of the effluent would be subsurface, through a leach field. Based on soils on site and the 350,000 gallon daily flow that we calculated that the fact that the State standards require an area equal in size to the original area to be available for a replacement, approximately 35 acres would be required for a treatment plant site. Sixteen acres would be used for actual field development at first. Using Warren Co. Soil maps we have identified areas on this map where a site could be, then looked at the sites, area F near the YMCA camp and south of Pickle hill Road seems to have the best potential for a treatment plant site within the basin. Construction Costs for each alternative-Transport Alternatives - Total Capital Cost to construct system, not operation and maintenance costs (Bay Road) 14.5 million dollars (Ridge Road) 15.8 million Councilman Monahan-Are you aware that we have plans to bring a sewer district past the Town Office on Bay and also if you came down Bay Road would you consider the Glen Lake Area? Mr. Nace- We are aware of the Bay Road alternative, if that were available we would try and come in with that...obviously if this was available it would change the costs, approximately a million dollar savings. Mr. Gannett-The other option to construct a treatment plant and disposal site in the basin would be about 14.7 million dollars...We will be generating operation and maintenance costs as we complete this study. Councilman Montesi-Have you costed the possibility of coming down Route 9? Mr. Nace-Costing it separately for just North Queensbury...we looked at it, it was much more expensive than either of these two options...If the two systems can be combined (Lake George and Tn of Qsby.) it would be more expensive but have a great deal of advantages as far as being able to serve more areas in the future. 174 k Financial Aid-We have looked for aid from EPA and DEC those programs have been phased out...they do have a revolving loan program which will be instituted we ' will look into that, but does not look promising for collection sewers...we have started to look into the Farmers Home Administration Programs, typically they are for underprivileged communities and are small sums, that does not look promising...Housing and Urban Development may have some programs we have not looked there yet...one passible alternative would be some special funding through the state, that would regnire the hackinq of your area legislators and public support for the system so the legislator would have the mandate he would need to go after funding. We will have another public meeting where we will present user costs... Glen Lake Issue-We have thought about Glen Lake, if the Town had a sewer system underway that would come up as far as the Town Office we would want another pump station to accommodate input from the Glen Lake Area, if we do that we are talking about more flow we would have to analyze the existing Town and City facilities further... Councilman Monahan-Could the existing Meadowbrook Pump station handle the additional flow? Mr. Nace-It may require some modification, I do not know at this stage. Open to public Dave Burns-Pilot Knob Road-Questioned if the area of Fort Ann was been eliminated... Mr. Nace-It has not been ruled out, but would take extra legal juggling to serve an outside community...the area of Pilot Knob it would depend on how far up you were to go... Councilman Montesi-Questioned if we would have to re-size our sewer system to accommodate Fort Ann? Mr. Nace-In the sizes of pipes that we are talking about you can accommodate more for than just from the Queensbury area, even at minimum sizes we would probably not have trouble serving an extra 300 homes. Noted Pilot Knob will be a difficult area to serve because of the topography. Councilman Potenza-How far down the east side of the Lake does the Village of Lake George go to... Mr. Nace-It is my understanding a point on Route 9L opposite Halls Boat Company... Mr. Robert Phillips-Pilot Knob Road-noted that area goes in and out of Washington Co. are you planning to use the roadway for the pipes? Mr. Nace- It will depend there are several lake properties where the pipe will be on properties...one of the expensive aspects of the local collection district is obtaining of easements. We may have to have some mains in Washington County... Mr. Art Norton-Rockhurst and Country Colony-1. Can the Glens Falls System handle all the proposed additions to it, Qsby., So. G.F. , Hudson Falls, Lake George...or how difficult is it to add to it? Mr. Nace-That is some of our work that is still going on and is in the project cost phase...preliminary indications are that at least the treatment plant is capable some of the city sewer systems are capable and we have to define that further. Mr. Art Norton-Have you determined the assessed valuation of this area that we are talking about? Mr. Nace-No, that will be when we finally figure out the bottom line of what the project cost is minus any aid that we find then we will take the assessment within the service district, and figure the costs to the home owner. Mr. Art Norton-Some of the subdivisions along Ridge Road or Bay Road would not be picked up within this... Mr. Nace-That is correct...That could be a Town decision at the time that the system I:7 5 were finally instituted, whether or not to put in an additional pump station to serve other areas. Jim Frasier-Is there a rough time schedule as to when this will pass? Mr. Nace-No Our next step is to finish up work with the Village and Town of Lake George because that if this comes to pass it would be a much less expensive alternative for North Queensbury...the work for the Village and Town of Lake George will be completed some time this fall, that would put us in October or November completinq Lhe work, for• Qurensbury, which will nail down everything but Aid..an on going battle. Councilman Montesi-If there are 800 residences and we assume the assessment is 300,000 per dwelling that is 24 million in assessed value and you are looking at a sewer project of 14-15 million you can see that those kinds of numbers...if there is no funding available we will have to wait and see about Lake George because we will need the assessed value.. L. Mr. Nace-That is very true. Mr. Frasier-That is not a big expense... Mr. Nace-I have not gone through the numbers to know how it works out, a bond and figure out the retirement of the bond would be...15 million typically about 10% per year plus interest, N million over 800 residences ...it would be around $2,000 per home owner per year for debt retirement Plus operation and maintenance...this is a very rough number... Mr. James Duggan-Assembly Point-Is it intended that all of Assembly Point would be included, not just lake front property? Mr. Nace-That is correct. Mr. Tom Gerrard-Questioned the use of small cluster system not centralized? Mr. Nace-At this stage we do not have that mandate, our scope of services is to find a way to serve the entire North Queensbury Area... Councilman Potenza-Are there any other alternatives other than hooking up to the Glens Falls System...such as holding tanks being trucked to the City Treatment Plant? Mr. Nace-We have taken a look, not in this study at the tank it and truck it option and for any large number of residences it turns out to be much more expensive than to build an expensive treatment plant and operate it. Councilman Montesi-Asked that a tank and truck it option be figured out for this area... Mr. Nace-We can work up the numbers for that... Mrs. Stewart-Qu• -f4­-d when you put in sewer lines can water lines be placed at the same time to eventually be given municipal water system... Mr. Nace-Water and Sewer lines cannot be placed in the same trench... Mr. Jim Ingalls-You are going to pump 21 million of gallons of water that otherwise would be in the Lake George Basin into Glens Falls...I have no idea what 21 million gallons of water looks like? L Mr. Nace-64 acres of water one foot deep... Mary Arthur Beebe-Is the Pipe +hat is being laid now on Glen Street large enough to accommodate the addition of Lake George? Supervisor Borgos-Noted thal. Mr. Kestner is present...reviewed the sizes of the Pipes noting that they are too small...noted that there are legal problems with increasing the size of the pipes in an already formed district... Mr. Kestner-Noted that we are close to installing a line along Route 9...would like to see a way to upsize the pipe... Councilman Monahan-Is it possible to come down Route 9 across Glen Lake and tie 176 e into Bay Road... Mr. Nace-One of the problems with that is that with the flow from Lake George we would over power your existing facilities and the city system...the potential does exist to come in Glen Street with the flow...an option would be the Country Club Road... Supervisor Borgos-I am delighted that so many of you have shown up, we have come a lot inrt.her than what you see here...the Village and Town of Lake George have decided that they are interested eight or nine months ago when I spoke to some of them there was no interest but now there is an interest. If indeed this can be worked out if the two systems can be joined together it will more than double the assessed valuation, maybe triple...that will make an solid economic base. It will increase the flow dramatically that will be attractive to the City of Glens Falls I have met with the Mayor, the Mayor assure me that there is ample capacity there and the City is willing to make it available so the capacity problem is solved. I have made overtures to Ciba Geigy about their capacity and we will be getting an answer back at some point ...the big question is one of funding but even if there is no funding when we start doubling or tripling the tax base and spread the costs I think we are looking at something that can be done. I am very pleased to see the support of the Village and Town of Lake George this might make everything work. I want to complement Rist Frost for the fine work they have done... On motion the meeting was adjourned. Respectfully Submitted, Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk 3