Adam Litman, Lloyd’s Water & Sewer Administrator, met with the Southern Ulster Times to talk about the new water tank, its $2.5 million price tag and an update on its current status. It was built by Statewide Aquastore Inc., based in East Syracuse, NY.

 

Litman said the usable capacity of the new tank is 1.9 million gallons and although it is listed as a 2 million gallon tank, he purposely leaves a little space near the top.

 

Litman said the overflow pipe that is attached to the side is there for safety reasons, “so if you overfill its capacity, it comes back out of the tank...We look at the height of the tank as 48 feet, as far as telemetry (recording readings) of how much water we put in a tank, but it’s actually a little bit higher. If you go past the overflow level there’s a few more feet, so it’s actually 50 feet.”

 

Litman said there are fluctuations in water levels during the course of a given day, but he tries to maintain a 1.9 million gallon level that best serves the town’s needs. He said they do measurements daily and fill it with about 650,000 gallons a day.

 

“When we start up in the morning we bring it up to a 46 or 47 foot capacity for overnight consumption and then the town draws down on it and every day we bring it back to those maximum capacities,” he said.

 

Litman said, “the tank is made of steel, with an approved epoxy coating on the outside that is supposed to last a lifetime. On the inside, it is what’s called a glass-lined tank that is actually sealed so you don’t have water contact with steel.”

 

Litman said water is first treated at the nearby water plant before it is sent to the tank.     

 

“We have four reservoirs, so we have storage capacity up here that we draw off of,” he said. “These are a seasonal source, not our primary source and, of course, the Hudson River is our primary source. Last month we were 90% river water and we were pumping it from the John Pisani Hudson River Pump Station on Ose Road up to the water plant where we treat and clean it and it is pumped out into the system. The demand first goes to the town and to other tanks if it’s called for, and then it comes up to this new tank.”   

 

Litman said there are just over 1,900 water and sewer accounts in town, which are mostly residences and some commercial, such as Hannaford and in the Route 9W corridor.

 

Litman said he will next be working to rehabilitate many parts at the water plant such as the clarifiers and filters because, “these actually work best and it is cost effective, but if we don’t take care of what we have, what do we do? Without water and without sewer the town dies, so we have to be proactive looking toward the future.”

 

Litman expects this work will take several years because, “you cannot take the whole facility out and shut it down, so you have to do one unit at a time.” Of immediate concern is the analog main control panel because some of the parts may no longer be available for it; “we are very lucky that it starts every day and we’ve been told that this has to be our number one priority because you could get hit by a bolt of lightning or have a power surge and what happens when you need this controller? Our 20 year old car stops bringing us to work, that we put 200,000 miles on it a year, and that’s what happens.”

 

Litman said the town made a wise decision to install a new water tank at $2.5 million, instead of cleaning and fixing the old one, which was estimated at $1.6 million. The fix it option meant no water tank or water pressure to the town for 6 to 8 weeks and a by-pass system would have had to be worked out, “but one emergency would have put us all in very bad jeopardy situation.” He estimates the life span of the new water tank may, with care and regular upkeep, last upwards of 100 years.

 

As previously reported, the town has received $500,000 from Ulster County through their Covid Relief Fund that will go to offset the cost of the new tank. The town is hoping to learn later this month whether they will be awarded $1.6 million through a Consolidated Funding Application grant [CFA] that will be used to pay a bond that the town was issued for this project. If not successful in this round of grants, the bond they received in 2022 stays in place, which has a very low interest rate of 0.6 percent.    

 

Litman said the old tank is still in use because they are slowly filling the new one until it reaches full capacity.

 

“The tank has to come to full capacity and the water has to be run through the downspout just to get it nice and fresh,” he said. “Then it has to be shut down to draw a couple of sample rounds that have to be sent out [for analysis] and then we have to do it again within another 24 hour period because it has to pass a number of tests, such as the Coliform Bacteria levels.”   

 

Litman said because covid led to project and supply line delays of critical steel and other materials, the construction company [Statewide Aquastore] had to ask for an extension that pushed it to a one year timeline, when similar water tank projects typically take 6 months from signature to completion. He said even after eight months of delay, the construction company began in earnest this past July and are now nearing completion.

 

Litman said things moved very quickly once the concrete base was set and cured.

 

“They came back and set up 8 or 9 jack and hoist systems and it kind of made an interior ring around it and they started building the structure of the roof, which is made of steel columns,” he said. “Then all these jacks raised up a ring of wall panels one at a time and they put down the next ring and bolted it together. It progressed very fast once they got into the groove.”

 

Litman said once the new tank passes all its tests and is not showing any issues after two filling cycles, he expects he will pull the plug and give the order to begin taking down and removing the old tank.