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The Mid-Hudson region is blessed with an abundance of water resources, a bounty so taken for granted over two centuries of industrial, commercial and residential development that it was being sorely taxed until a decade and a half ago when government and business leaders began to address the problem in earnest. Now that it’s common knowledge that Coke (Dasani) and Pepsi (Aquafina) and perhaps everybody else are selling us bromide-infused, reverse osmosis-filtered municipal tap water in bottles for a buck fifty a pop – stuff that’s no better than filtered Hudson River water – people are even more concerned about what’s coming out of their faucets.
Locally the water situations could not be more different on the east and west sides of the Hudson, as the most populous communities Ulster County – including Kingston, Saugerties and New Paltz – derive much of their water either by tapping into New York City’s long-protected water system via the Catskill Aqueduct, or from nearby, equally pristine mountain reservoirs. Ulster’s problem is less one of availability and more one of connectivity.
Dutchess County, however, is not so fortunate, as the Big Apple’s massive aqueducts pass beneath the Hudson too far south of Beacon to be of service. Dutchess, once solely reliant on drilling individual wells into shallow aquifers, is a crazy quilt of water sources that are increasingly coming under the purview of larger entities, most notably the Dutchess County Water and Wastewater Authority (DCWWA), which was formed in 1992. Municipalities have been grappling with dwindling groundwater resources for years – in quite a few instances the result of contamination from industrial sources, most notably from the toxic byproducts of the biggest gorilla in town, IBM. The still PCB-plagued Hudson River is playing a greater-than-ever role in slaking the thirst of Dutchess residents, some of them living many miles from its banks.
The Dutchess Beat, attempting to ride the wave of its new sense of mission, decided to tackle the story of regional water infrastructure a number of weeks ago, not fully aware that a seminal event would be serendipitously scheduled for the day before deadline that might serve to tie the whole enchilada together. That event, on a sparkling afternoon this Tuesday, Aug. 28 at the county pump station at Page Park Drive in the Town of Poughkeepsie, was a “valve-turning” ceremony to symbolically open the DCWWA’s new $33 million, 13-mile Central Dutchess Water Transmission Line for business.
And that will be where our story begins:
Finding your center
Of the many benefits clean and abundant water brings – including health, agricultural productivity and higher property values – office cubicles and paychecks aren’t among the most obvious. But according to Dutchess County Executive William Steinhaus (R), new jobs are exactly what residents in the southern central reaches of the county can expect now that the new water pipeline is complete.
Following the path of the former Maybrook rail line and buried four feet underground, the Central Dutchess Water Transmission Line will carry water treated at the Poughkeepsie Water Treatment Facility down into south central Dutchess, passing through the towns of Poughkeepsie, LaGrange and Wappinger and terminating at the Hudson Valley Research Park in East Fishkill, where IBM operates a chip fabrication plant. On the way, the pipeline skirts an aquatically distressed area in Hopewell Junction plagued by TCE in its groundwater, and the big pipe’s terminus at IBM is only two miles or so from another EPA Superfund site.
Water sales to IBM commenced in July. The supply was online and flowing freely Aug. 28, as Steinhaus demonstrated by turning a crucifix-like metal key adjacent to a fire hydrant tapped into the pipeline that shot water into a chain-link fence following the celebratory press conference. Elected officials, county employees and community members were gathered at the Page Park Drive pump station to watch the gushing white gold, marveling at what had been done without raising a dime from county taxpayers.
To attract major businesses that would bring jobs to the county “you need to be able to say you have water,” said Steinhaus, who called the project “the single most significant environmental groundwater protection initiative and long-term economic development project in Dutchess County.”
IBM has contracted to pay for 2 million gallons of water per day from the pipeline to supply its East Fishkill campus. The company also helped fund the project, contributing $11 million toward the $33 million cost. The remainder was paid for by contributions from the county ($10 million, bonded in stages) and state ($11 million).
The Poughkeepsie Water Treatment Facility, a cooperative effort between the city and town of Poughkeepsie, draws from the Hudson River to supply the pipeline.
Steinhaus likened IBM to an anchor tenant at a mall – the company’s promise to purchase water adding to the financial viability of the project.
After IBM draws its water, the pipeline will have 8 million gallons per day available capacity to service residents and businesses in its path. Two subdivisions planned for East Fishkill – Lake Walton and Hopewell Glen – are potential customers, according to county officials, as are two businesses, Southeastern Container in the Town of Wappinger and PREI, a real estate concern. The fire districts of East Fishkill, New Hackensack and LaGrange will be able to tap into the pipeline as well.
Finding clean water has been particular challenge for residents of one East Fishkill neighborhood, as in Hopewell Junction and certain other hamlets throughout the county. Contamination of groundwater by an IBM subcontractor led the Environmental Protection Agency to place the Shenandoah neighborhood near the IBM facility on its list of national priorities and to mandate environmental cleanup. IBM was directed to contribute $10 million to connect residents of the neighborhood who had relied on wells to clean water supplies. That project is apparently separate from IBM’s contribution toward the pipeline. The EPA identified an outside supplier, Jack Manne Inc., which cleaned and repaired chips for IBM at its site on East Hook Cross Road, as the source of groundwater contamination.
Central Dutchess water
Elsewhere in the county’s interior far from the Hudson River, private wells make up a large portion of the water supply, but officials in several towns said they have designs on expanding existing municipal water sources as well.
In Pleasant Valley, the majority of residents and businesses draw water from private wells, with the town having no main municipal water system. With the exception of a few water districts in some of the town’s subdivisions – one district for the Valleydale development, located off Traver Road, is managed by the DCWWA, for example – residents are served by wells, said Town Supervisor Jeff Battistoni.
But he added that plans are under way to create a municipal water supply for the town that would serve the area along Route 44, called Main Street as it runs through the central business district.
“We have a water committee, which is working with the Chazen Companies to prepare a water district in town,” said Battistoni. “We want to have a plan in place to strengthen our infrastructure.”
Headed by resident Rick Wilhelm, the committee has already accepted one of several designs presented by Chazen, but it now faces the hurdle of convincing the Con Edison Company, which owns a large substation on Route 44 and would have a significant vote in the future of the project based on property value, to agree to the cost of the water system.
“We’d have to do some negotiation with Con Edison and work out a compromise to get them on board,” said Battistoni.
In neighboring LaGrange, a similar situation prevails. Much of the water supply comes from private wells, owing to the largely rural nature of the area. But an expanding series of water districts, governed by the town’s master plan and zoning regulations, are slowly linking more properties to the municipal water supply. The town water is tested for quality by Poughkeepsie-based Environmental Consultants, a firm contracted by the town board.
Supervisor Jon Wagner said that the town’s main water district, the Manchester district, has been increasing in size, merging with other pre-existing districts in an effort to streamline delivery. Currently, the town has three districts — Manchester, Grandview and Town Center — under its purview, in addition to several smaller districts within private developments, and Wagner said plans are under way to link the Manchester and Town Center districts, creating a central source for much of the Route 55 area of town.
Despite the eventual linking of the district, though, Wagner pointed out that much of the supply has and will continue to come from private wells.
“With the makeup and history of the town, most of the water will continue to be delivered by private wells,” he said.
Back in the town of East Fishkill, one of the largest towns in Dutchess County at 52 square miles, water is supplied through a variety of sources —seven municipal water districts, managed by the town and tested regularly by the county Health Department, along with several smaller districts connected to subdivisions and housing developments and private wells. Supervisor John Hickman estimated that more than 50 percent of the town’s properties still get their water from private wells, making ground pollution from the IBM facilities in East Fishkill a concern throughout much of the water supply.
The town is currently seeking ways to increase its water distribution, including to some areas where existing aquifers can no longer meet the needs of the rising population. Hickman said that town engineer Scott Bryance is working to develop plans for more effective water delivery, and despite the opening of the Central Dutchess Water Transmission Line this week, Hickman said the town had no plans to connect to it, citing cost as a prohibitive factor.
Hickman said that penalties incurred for using more than the contracted amounts of water from the pipeline discouraged town leaders from signing an agreement with the county.
“A contract for the new county water line is costly – too costly to make it practical for us to contract with them,” he said. “We’re actively looking for other ways to move water throughout the town.”
Hickman said that the Brettview and Presidential Way areas of town, in particular, need an increase in their water supplies. In those areas, growth has exceeded what current water supplies can provide.
“We’re working to combine water systems, find a way to transport the water and ensure that supplies will be sufficient throughout the town,” he said.
Poughkeepsie to the rescue
Today, the water that fills the cups of Poughkeepsie city and town residents comes from the Hudson River, but that wasn’t always the case.
Early settlers in Poughkeepsie, as elsewhere, drank from wells on street corners — until those public water sources became pestilent. Poughkeepsie’s rapid population growth during the 19th century led to contamination of groundwater in the city, causing proliferation of deadly diseases. To drink water in the City of Poughkeepsie in the mid-1800s was to risk cholera (untreated, cholera resulted in a painful death by diarrhea), typhoid fever, smallpox and diphtheria.
City residents recognized the need to improve sanitation, but with the interruption of the Civil War, no real progress was made until 1872, when the city cut the ribbon on the nation’s first successful filtration system, drawing water not from the ground but from the river, and epidemics finally disappeared in the “Sickly City,” as Poughkeepsie was known at the time.
Today the city has joined forces with the Town of Poughkeepsie and operates its water treatment facility on North Road, near Marist College. The plant draws water directly from the Hudson River and uses a conventional filtration method: adding chemicals and solids to river water, causing fine particles to combine and settle. After sedimentation, the particles are filtered out and the water is disinfected.
The facility monitors PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) levels monthly. According administrator Paul Lill, the plant has never detected any PCBs in the water; yet it has found trace levels (at 0.000010 mg/L) in the river sediment, or sludge. “All the PCBs were in the sludge that was removed from the process before the water leaves the plant,” said Lill. The federal EPA also tests for PCB contamination several times per year.
The General Electric Company was responsible for discharging the PCBs – classified as possible and known carcinogens by cancer protection agencies – into the Hudson River at its Fort Edward and Hudson Falls plants. Contamination was identified as a problem in 1974, but the distance between Fort Edward and Poughkeepsie – about 130 miles by car – and the cessation of the dumping have prevented the PCB contamination from impacting its customers, according to the facility’s Web site.
The plant uses ultraviolet light and chloramines to kill bacteria and pathogens found in the river water. A combination of chlorine and ammonia at low concentrations, the long-lasting chloramines replaced chlorine as the plant’s disinfectant of choice in 2006. This summer, the facility also returned to fluoridation – a method of dental protection that critics say is ineffective and even harmful – after a two-year hiatus while the plant was reconfigured. Another additive, orthophosphate, reduces lead corrosion as the water enters its customer’s lead pipes and plumbing fixtures.
Potential problems
Safely drinking from the Hudson requires keeping a careful eye on the “Salt Front.” The force of water flow from the Hudson restrains the salty Atlantic Ocean, but when a period of drought reduces the Hudson’s flow, the front pushes northward. The salt front line is usually much further south than Poughkeepsie, but during dry weather, it forges upstream. Poughkeepsie customers were last impacted in 2002.
Another threat to water quality is cross-connection of water lines on consumers’ properties. Garden hoses, sprinklers, dishwashers and heating systems can sometimes interconnect with drinking water. Residents who suspect a cross-connection should notify their public works departments.
When faucets produce cloudy, discolored water, an interruption in flow is often to blame. Water returning to pipes can force sediment or rust from the distribution system into the water. Don’t drink discolored water, the treatment facility advises; run cold water until clear.
Towns of Wappinger and Fishkill
Again, groundwater still quenches thirsty residents in numerous towns throughout the county. The Wappinger, Fishkill and Sprout creeks feed underground aquifers that are pumped out at wells.
Customers in Wappinger and Fishkill hook up to municipally-owned systems that are operated by a private company, the Wappinger-based Camo Pollution Control. Several thousand customers in each town draw from the municipal supply, while other residents take their water from privately-owned wells.
Camo pumps water out of aquifers and tests for organic and inorganic pollutants, following a protocol set by the state Health Department’s sanitation code (part 5). It disinfects with chlorine and distributes water through pipes, according to Camo’s vice president, Mike Tremper. It also monitors for industrial pollutants like MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether). When spilled, the gasoline additive, like other pollutants, can seep down into soil and spread through water tables. In an attempt to handle these pernicious contaminants, the Dutchess County Legislature passed a resolution mandating the testing of private wells earlier this year, but fell short of the votes required to override a veto from Steinhaus. Both Steinhaus and the legislators have noted that alternative proposals for testing are on the way.
The capacity for each municipally-owned well is determined by a “taking permit,” a maximum amount (generally in the several millions of gallons) to be drawn from the aquifer per day. According to Tremper, capacity is still available to serve additional customers in Fishkill, Wappinger and surrounding areas.
The most common concern from Camo’s customers is aesthetic, he said: The high mineral content in well water causes buildup on faucets and dishwashers and makes the water more difficult to lather in the shower. Municipalities do not usually soften water during treatment, but customers can purchase water softeners for their homes.
While Camo monitors for pollutants, Tremper said prevention is up to local governments. “It’s a global issue,” said Tremper; municipalities “have got to protect the aquifers by controlling development” and cleaning up spills.
Beacon’s municipal system on cruise control
Down in the southwestern tip of the county, the City of Beacon municipal water supply serves approximately 19,000 people and at last count had 4,405 active metered connections. The system, which draws from Cargill, Mt. Beacon and Melzingah reservoirs and three groundwater sources – City of Beacon wells 1 and 2 and Village of Fishkill Well 8 – produced 760,859,000 gallons of water in 2006 for a daily average of 2,084,545 gallons. Water from the various sources is blended in various combinations depending on source condition and demand, and the blended water is then treated at the water filtration facility at 470 Liberty St. The current capacity of the filtration plant is 4 million gallons per day.
The city’s Water and Sewer Department maintains reservoirs and wells and performs periodic testing and monitoring of water quality. It maintains the water distribution system – piping, values and fire hydrants – provides adequate water for fire protection and consumer use and maintains water quality throughout the system. Chemicals are added to the blended water to facilitate filtration. The water is then filtered and chemicals are added for disinfection and corrosion control. The water is then pumped to the distribution system entry point tank.
As in every other year, the state Dept. of Corrections was the largest single customer of Beacon water in 2006, using an average of 479,277 gallons per day and paying $399,908 for water all year. City residents were charged for water on a descending scale: $20.16 for the first 600 cubic feet; then $2.67 per 100 cubic feet up to 10,000 cubic feet; then $2.25 per 100 cubic feet up to 100,000 cubic feet; then $1.45 per 100 cubic feet up to a million cubic feet (Note: 100 cubic feet equals 748 gallons). Non-residents were charged at twice the residential rate.
About 2,500 customers in Fishkill’s Rombout water district along Route 9D – including Dutchess Stadium and Beacon High School – draw about 300,000 gallons a day from a five-year-old extension of the City of Beacon’s municipal system.
The mother plant
Water – who’s hooked up and who’s footing the bill — has historically been a source of great controversy in Hyde Park. The town’s main plant, the Hyde Park Water Treatment Facility, began flowing in the late 1990s and was created with capacity to serve customers in the Hyde Park water district (comprised of the Route 9 corridor on the southern half of town) and other neighborhoods as well: Staatsburg hooked up in 2000, ending its dependence on the problematic Staatsburg Water Company, and Harbourd Hills linked up in 2002. It was originally hoped that more neighborhoods further afield would sign up, making the Hyde Park plant a major regional supplier, though most have yet to do so.
Hyde Park turned over operation of the plant to the DCWWA in 1998. DCWWA acquires plants at the request of local governments that no longer want the responsibility and expense of running them. The county water agency owns and operates six other water systems and three wastewater systems in towns of Beekman, Dover, Pleasant Valley, Rhinebeck and Red Hook. Collectively, DCWWA serves more than 10,000 people. The Hyde Park plant was also initially evaluated as a source for the Central Dutchess Water Transmission Line, but the two extra miles of pipeline necessary to reach it put it out of the running, at least temporarily.
After major pollution from an MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) spill in the Greenbush neighborhood of Hyde Park was identified in 2000, much debate centered on whether Greenbush residents should get clean municipal water; some residents said they did not want to trade away their right to sue the parties responsible for the spill (as they were asked to do) in return for public water. But Greenbush did hook up to the Poughkeepsie treatment facility in 2005.
Under DCWWA’s management, the Hyde Park plant serves 2,100 customers. Town Board member Robert Linville (D-First Ward) said he is grateful that Hyde Park plant now provides water to the Staatsburg hamlet he calls home.
“For all the difficulties the Hyde Park fire and water district went through in improving their water source, I’m very appreciative that they now have a good quality and good quantity water source,” he said. Since Staatsburg hooked up seven years ago, “it has made an enormous difference,” said Linville. The community now has “clean, plentiful and reasonably priced water,” which are attributes it didn’t have under the private Staatsburg Water Company. With its guaranteed rate of return, the private operator became notorious for discolored, expensive and inadequate water supplies and finally abandoned its treatment facility.
The Hyde Park plant draws water from the Hudson River at a facility near Rogers Point, and treats it at a filtration plant located at the end of South Drive. Much like at Poughkeepsie’s treatment plant, chemicals are added to the river water to coagulate particles before filtration. Chlorine is used for disinfection, but fluoride is not added to the water in Hyde Park, as it is in Poughkeepsie. Other chemical additives include copper sulfate for taste and odor control and potassium permanganate to control for zebra mussels.
The small fingernail-sized mussels that now swim in the Hudson are native to the freshwater lakes of Russia, and were not spotted in North America until the 1980s. Rapidly reproducing and able to survive out of water for days at a stretch, the resilient pests are believed to have invaded U.S. waters by hitching a ride in the ballasts of oceangoing vessels. The microscopic larvae swim directly into water facilities, and therefore must be treated with chemicals: At the Hyde Park plant, potassium permanganate keeps them under control.
Drinking deep in Rhinebeck, Red Hook
More than 4,300 customers in the Village of Rhinebeck and parts of the surrounding town pay $6 for every 1,000 gallons of H2O served up by the Rhinebeck Village Water Department, which draws water from the Hudson River. Just off Slate Dock Road in the hamlet of Rhinecliff just south of the Gov. George Clinton Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge, a 30-inch pipe juts 850 feet or so into the Hudson at a depth of about 20 to 30 feet, feeding river water into the thirsty Rhinebeck Water Treatment plant. The plant was built in 1968, and is certified by the state to produce 1.05 million gallons of water a day. The system includes 25 miles of pipeline and a 2-million-gallon water storage facility located on Violet Hill that can store two to three days’ worth of water. The water system typically provides between 700,000 and 1,500,000 gallons of water a day, or on average 8 million pounds of water daily.
A conventional filtration process utilizes rapid mix, coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfecting by the monitored use of chlorine. Orthophosphate is also added to reduce corrosion of customers’ lead fixtures. As in Hyde Park, potassium permanganate is used as a pretreatment for the control of Zebra mussels during the warm water months. According to the Rhinebeck Water Department web presence, “Our drinking water meets or exceeds state and federal regulations, stricter standards than for common distributed bottled water.”
According to its 2004 annual drinking water quality report, the Village of Red Hook gets its water from several drilled wells that draw from an underground aquifer. The raw water is then disinfected with sodium hypochlorite within the pump house facility to remove microbiologic contaminants prior to distributing it to customers. In 2004, the Village of Red Hook pumped and treated over 92 million gallons of water, serving a population of over 2,000 people through 785 service connections.
The DCWWA-run Rokeby Water Service Area in Red Hook gets its supply from two deep wells located in the well-field adjacent to the pump house on Jefferson Road. The first well is 210 feet deep and is rated at 30 gallons per minute. The second well is 500 feet deep and is rated at 26 gallons per minute. Both wells are sealed and protected from surface contamination, and treatment of the water drawn from them consists of disinfection with chlorine to destroy microorganisms. The treatment and storage facilities are located in the pump house. where a 5,000-gallon hydro-pneumatic tank provides storage and system pressure. Water is distributed from the pressure tank through approximately 7,800 linear feet of six-inch-diameter water mains. The system serves approximately 160 residents through 57 service connections. The total water produced in 2006 was about 2,646,000 gallons.
The tiny Village of Tivoli has one of the county’s oldest municipal water systems, thanks to the foresight in 1938 of the federal Works Progress Administration and village fathers, who approved funding for the installation of a municipal water and wastewater system that included the classic water tower that still stands prominently over the village.
Keeping it safe
The Dutchess County Department of Health regulates the county’s approximately 710 public water supplies, whether or not they’re owned by the DCWWA (most still aren’t). The biggest three service more than 50,000 people in the cities of Beacon and Poughkeepsie, with another 45,000 individuals obtaining their water from the Town of Poughkeepsie. These three, along with 85 other significant-sized systems, are regulated by the engineering section of the Environmental Health Services division. Then there are 320-odd water supplies at facilities under permit (restaurants, motels, camps, day care centers, etc.), which are inspected by the public health sanitarians assigned to one of the department’s three district offices. The remaining 300 supplies are monitored by the department’s Water Enhancement Program staff.
During 2006, as a result of more than 700 inspections at public water supplies, the department issued more than 550 violations. The most common violations cited were: unsatisfactory operation of treatment equipment; source water pollution; incomplete or unacceptable reporting by the supplier; the presence of a cross-connection between potable and non-potable water; failure to maintain disinfection chemicals at proper concentrations; failure to monitor for contaminants in a timely manner; modification to the treatment system without approval; and diminished quality or quantity of source water.
