There has to be some problem with measurement of water use or billing, resident Frank Oliveri told a regular Saugerties Village Board meeting on Monday, September 21. “Several years ago, I installed a sprinkler system in my yard, for my lawn and my garden, and the summer water bills have become exorbitant,” he said. The problem is not the water consumption portion of the bill, he said, but rather the sewer charge.
Water use is not as great as when the sprinkler system is working in summer, Oliveri said. But the water used to water the lawn and garden in summer runs off into the village collection system, he said. His objection, he said, is being billed for sewer service that he is not using.
Oliveri’s most recent bill, from May 1 to July 31 is $441 for water, “which I am not disputing at all, but the exorbitant charge for sewer is $717, which to me is outrageous, based on the fact that I’m not using the sewer. I’m asking the board to come up with a resolve; how do we fix this.”
Mayor William Murphy responded that there was no way to accurately measure sewer use. Sewer use is calculated on the average percentage of water use goes into the sewer system.
“In the summer months, 40 percent of the water is not going into the sewer,” Oliveri responded.
“But during the winter months, probably more than 40 percent is,” Murphy said. His water and sewer bill was higher in the summer months because of his garden and pool, he said.
Murphy suggested a possible solution people he knew worked out. They had a spike installed in their garden, which tapped the groundwater and did not run through the village water system. “That is water that is not metered. it is a one-time fee paid to a contractor to install it, but basically then it’s your water.”
Water superintendent Mike Hopf said the sewer charge was not applied to water used for a one-time pool filling of a new pool. “The water and the sewer is billed on a one-to-one ratio,” he explained. “However, the sewer rate is higher than the water rate because of the expenses associated with the sewer. For every gallon of water that you consume that goes through the meter, you get billed for one gallon of sewer. That’s the way it’s been set up, and there is no other way around it because there is not really a way to calculate it.”
Councilman Jeff Helmuth asked whether it would be possible to install a split meter. “You would be charged for the water that goes to the irrigation system, but not for the sewer,” he suggested.
The village provides one meter per house, Hopf said. “There are landlords who do meter beyond if they want to meter for each individual apartment, but they are responsible for the cost of the meter, the installation and the billing that they do is all on their own. We do one meter per household. So I understand what you are saying, Jeff, about having one meter for irrigation, but that is something that would have to be adopted by the board for the water department. It is currently not a practice that we do. I guess there could be a case made for a separate water line altogether that is for the irrigation system itself, with a separate tap and meter.”
Murphy suggested two separate bills, one for regular household water use and another for irrigation.
“I would have to look into it, but I don’t see any reason that could not be a possibility,” Hopf said.
Oliveri said he would look into these suggestions. “I’m not opposed to putting my hand in my pocket for a short-term expense for a long-term solution,” he said. “I’m here for the long haul, and I’m sure that either one of these options would be a solution in the long term.”
The board will have the winter months to consider possible solutions, Murphy said, but he added he could not make any promises as to what might be worked out.
Goose carcasses cleared
Billy Voerg’s first day on his job with the Village of Saugerties Water Department was unusual. He spent much of that day bagging dead geese.
Voerg started on September 8, “a day he will not soon forget,” said water department superintendent Mike Hopf. “One hour into his shift, we were made aware of 21 geese down a 20-foot embankment that were dumped into a tributary. Billy ended up going down and bagging 21 geese. He did return to work the next day and has been training for the past two weeks.”
Hopf showed the village board pictures of the dead geese. “They were breasted out by a hunter – as that’s the better quality of meat – and then were thrown off a bridge for us to collect,” he said.
The water department was informed of the dead geese by a resident. Hopf said he contacted the Department of Environmental Conservation. “They came out the following day, but by then we had them cleaned up. We didn’t want to leave them in the water any longer than we had to – and they made out a report, but unfortunately there wasn’t much for them to go on.”
Virus slows sewer plant repair
An RBC [rotating biological contactor] that was supposed to have been installed in the Village of Saugerties sewer system has been stalled by the coronavirus outbreak. The device is used in secondary treatment of sewage.
Sewer plant superintendent Alphonse “Mike” Marino said at the Saugerties Village Board meeting on September 21 that the old unit was removed about a month ago in preparation for a replacement. He has contacted the manufacturer, and expects the unit to be delivered and installed in late September or early October. In the meantime, the plant workers have prepared the plant for the installation.
The unit, one of eight at the plant, costs about $210,000. The plant is operating with only seven of the eight units in place, Marino told the board at a previous meeting.
Addressing a concern raised by trustee Vince Buono, Marino said an odor the resident had complained to Buono about is not likely to have been caused by the lack of the RBC, as the water is chlorinated to remove bacteria that could cause odor. “I’m still looking to see what we can do in house to control this odor,” he said.
The plant workers have adopted several measures and procedures to reduce the odors from the plant, including reprogramming the odor-control system to provide greater concentrations over a longer time period and the use of a solution that absorbs the odors rather than a simple deodorant.
Cooler weather will reduce the spread of the odor, Marino said.
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