Gardiner OKs Lazy River season, hikes campground license fee to $15/site
At its September 8 meeting, the Gardiner Town Board voted unanimously to issue a license to Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park™ Camp-Resort at Lazy River to operate for the remainder of the 2020 season. The resort had reopened to campers without an active license since late April.
The official permission to operate extends only to such accommodations as have previously been issued permits by the town, excluding expansions that have generated considerable controversy among neighbors, such as a large house on a recently acquired adjoining property, marketed as Cindy Bear’s Palace, and associated tennis court, basketball court and racetrack. Requests for permits for the expansion are being reviewed separately by the Planning Board.
In addition, the Town Board voted to change the town’s annual licensing fee for large campgrounds, which has been on the books but not collected for many years now, from $5 per campsite to $15. “When the town requested that Lazy River apply for their annual license, we requested a fee of $20 per site,” town supervisor Marybeth Majestic said. “The applicant…paid the fee this year with their license application, but they paid under protest. At the direction of the town board, Warren [Wiegand] analyzed the amount of resources expended by the town that were necessary to review the 2020 license application, which had numerous discrepancies. Once these expenses were considered, the Town Board decided to adjust the fee to $15 per site, and reevaluate on an annual basis.”
Study shows Gardiner sewers need $200K+ in repairs
The Town of Gardiner’s sewer district could face hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of repairs in the foreseeable future, according to the Sewer Treatment Inflow & Infiltration (I&I) Study recently completed by Pitingaro & Doetsch Consulting Engineers, PC. The consultants’ investigation, prompted by an order from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) mandating a Flow Management Plan for the town, revealed that 21 of the town’s 32 manholes were “severely corroded” and “in dire need of rehabilitation” at a cost of $4,000 to $5,000 each. “Some of the interiors are collapsing,” consultant Jason Pitingaro told the Town Board at its September 8 meeting.
In addition, the engineers recommended that the town install concrete risers on 34 septic tanks – more than one out of six in the district – whose faulty seals had failed a smoke test, at a cost of $2,500 to $3,000 per tank. Consultant Darren Doetsch estimated that stormwater inflow and infiltration into the system could be reduced by up to 30 percent if needed repairs were made, buying the town more time to address its problem of the downtown sewage system being close to capacity.
Additional costly repairs to the town’s pump stations might prove necessary as well, according to Doetsch: “I don’t think the pump stations are operating correctly. They’re taking too long to empty,” he told the board. The study also revealed four illegal connections discharging into the sewer pipes, three of them probably from rain gutters and the fourth from a sump pump.
The consultants recommended that the town hold off on any major decisions until the DEC issues its Intended Use Plan for 2021, prioritizing municipal sewage systems in need of modernization. Gardiner’s State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) permit is currently under review, as part of the state’s campaign to address the “impaired” state of the Wallkill River. The town’s wastewater treatment plant is already “high on the list of plants that had to be looked at,” Pitingaro said, noting that such status implies “potential for funding” for improvements from state coffers.
Gardiner taps Joule for Community Choice Aggregation administrator
Following months of research by the community organization Climate Smart Gardiner (CSG), the town has accepted the group’s recommendation of Katonah-based Joule Community Power to serve as Gardiner’s administrator to implement Community Choice Aggregation. The town board voted unanimously at its September 8 meeting to engage Joule as its next step toward allowing residents to exercise group purchasing power to obtain green-sourced electricity.
According to a slide presentation by councilman Franco Carucci, CSG had also considered another candidate for the administrator role, Good Energy, LP. But because Good Energy prioritizes cost savings over renewable energy, it sells a “brown-down” mix incorporating some electricity generated by burning fossil fuels. While that option might have saved the average Gardiner household $20 to $40 per year on its electric bill, CSG pointed out that making affordable green energy the top priority helps the town with its checklist for bronze certification under the state Climate Smart program, enhancing its eligibility for NYSERDA grant funding.
Carucci predicted that implementation of the Community Choice Aggregation energy purchase program in Gardiner will take less than ten months, now that the administrator has been designated. The administrator’s fees are paid by the energy supplier, based on the number of kilowatt hours provided to local accounts.
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