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TOWN OF JOHNSTOWN — The Town Board took action last Wednesday to task the engineering firm Environmental Design Partnership to provide the town with a cost estimate and scope of services plan for a proposed project to extend a water line onto State Route 349 up to Barker Road.
“[This is for] the engineering of it,” Town Supervisor Jack Wilson said, after the board unanimously voted in favor of the motion.
The Town Board has been discussing several water line extension proposals since Nov. 21, when Gloversville Water Superintendent Anthony Mendetta approached the board about the possibilities available for the town to tap into the city’s 12 million gallons of water per day water treatment capacity, of which Gloversville currently only uses 1.2 to 1.5 million gallons per day.
Mendetta outlined two water line extension proposals, one for an extension up State Route 349 up to Barker Road and the other for water service expansion into the hamlet of Meco from Route 29A to County Highway 122.
Mendetta told the Town Board that some of the potential benefits of extending municipal treated water service on Route 349 include eliminating existing E coli bacteria problems in the wells used in that area, improving water pressure and enabling hire hydrants so that the Pleasant Square Volunteer Fire Company can operate faster and with greater efficiency.
While Wilson said Medetta has indicated Gloversville is likely to allow additional water line extensions into “anyplace we want water to go,” any water extension will not only need approval from the Town Board, but, for most of the extensions, will also require additional sources of funding.
Part of the new push to extend water lines relates to new state and federal funding available for water infrastructure projects from the bipartisan $1.2 trillion U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
Previously, the $1.9 trillion U.S. American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), provided local governments with funding for economic development projects, including a $1.2 million ARPA grant to the Town of Johnstown, which used about $800,000 of the federal grant for a town project to extend water service from Gloversville to town hall and additional town residents on Route 29, kicking off the renewed focus on water line extensions from Gloversville’s system into the town.
Before the Town Board held its annual organizational meeting last Wednesday, board members had indicated the water line extension topic would be on the agenda. However, at the end of the meeting, the board was about to adjourn before having discussed the topic.
“I thought we were going to talk about water lines?” Town Board member Tim Rizzo interjected, as the board was about to consider a motion to adjourn.
“You’re right, you’re right,” Wilson said.
Rizzo suggested the Town Board move forward on the Route 349 extension, but hold off on supporting an extension of water service on Myrtle Avenue for now.
“I think it would be great if we actually just got the proposal from Travis [Mitchell] to do [Route] 349,” Rizzo said.
Rizzo introduced the resolution, which was seconded by Wilson before the board voted unanimously for approval.
Travis Mitchell, of the engineering firm Environmental Design Partnership, has been the lead engineer for the water line extension project to town hall and Route 29. Mitchell is also the engineer for Fulton County’s $8 million ARPA grant project to build a 7-mile sewer line extension from the Gloversville-Johnstown Joint Wastewater Treatment plant in the Town of Johnstown up Route 30A to Mayfield. While Fulton County’s ultimate goal for the project is for the sewer line to eventually reach up to Northville, that will require additional state and federal grants.
Wilson had previously indicated the Town has about $349,000 of ARPA funding remaining, which could pay for the engineering costs and at least some of the construction for the Route 349 proposal.
Wilson said he believes the work Mitchell has already done for Fulton County’s sewer line extension project will reduce the cost for putting together engineering plans for a water line extension on Route 349 up to Barker Road.
“The engineering costs on that are going to be very nil,” Wilson said. “All of the information he gathered doing the sewer line to go to Northville, already has a mile of the engineering complete, all he has to do is go over Barker Road. So, we’ll save a lot money there by doing that.”
Wilson said he will also ask Mitchell to include some additional areas adjacent to the Route 349 extension proposal.
“When we go out [Route] 349, we’ve had calls from the people who live up on top of the hill [the Pleasant View neighborhood],” Wilson said. “There are six or eight houses up there that are definitely interested in water, none of them were interested in sewer, but they were all interested in water, so I’ll have [Travis Mitchell] incorporate that as well, with an option to put that in, and I’ll do an option for Green Road as well. The people there have been asking for water, so we’ll do it as an option.”
Concerns over possible extension on to Myrtle Avenue
During the discussion about the water line extensions, Rizzo said the town needs to adjust its zoning rules and work with some of the owners of the lots on Myrtle Avenue before much development will be possible on that road.
“I think there’s some questions there, because a lot of the lots, according to [Town Code Enforcement Officer] Todd [Unislawski], are not buildable, unless you combine them, so until that would be settled first, I’d say no water line until the property lines are kosher-to-code,” Rizzo said.
Unislawski said a lot of the land parcels on Myrtle Avenue are only 0.1 acres in size, which is too small to meet the requirements of the town code for new house construction and too small to meet the town’s “set back” requirements for water lines and sewer service.
“You’ve got parcels out there that, even combining eight of them, it’s not going to give you a buildable land,” Unislawski told the board. “At one point in time, these were subdivided out to these many lots, if you will, it still doesn’t allow enough room for septic and well, it’s kind of hard to approve these lots.”
Wilson said extending the water service might be the catalyst necessary to motivate the changes necessary on Myrtle Avenue to foster growth.
“The only thing is, we may be able to see some development there, if there was water,” Wilson said.
Rizzo said he believes at one time some of the properties on Myrtle Avenue were subdivided for the purpose of creating small mobile home lots, but the town code does not allow them. He said the town should work with the property owners to see if they will consider consolidating the smaller lots into parcels that could support new house construction.
Unislawski questioned whether it would ever be worth the potential cost involved for the town to support a water line extension on Myrtle Avenue.
“If they had water [access on Myrtle Avenue] they could petition the Zoning Board of Appeals to go that route to get water, however, you’re still not going to have enough houses to make it worthwhile for the town to actually delve into this, because with the location of the current water line over on Elwood Avenue, there’s a hell of a distance there,” Unislawski said.
In December, Robert Olsen, who owns property on Myrtle Avenue, approached the board to consider a water line extension for that neighborhood, and town board members have indicated they’ve received comments from other town residents hoping for more municipal water line extensions.
The Town Board took no action on extending water service to Myrtle Avenue and did not discuss the Meco service expansion from Route 29A to County Highway 122, a project Wilson has said Fulton County may take the lead in supporting.
