After a third unsuccessful attempt to secure state funding for a new water tank, the Town of Ulster is moving ahead on the estimated $1.81 million project using $500,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
Council members unanimously approved the motion during a town board meeting held on Thursday, January 25, with Supervisor James E. Quigley, III said it was critical that the project move forward with the federal funding or risk losing it altogether.
“In December, we received notice from New York State that we were unsuccessful in obtaining a WIIA (Water Infrastructure Improvement Act) grant to fund the largest portion of this capital program,” Quigley said. “And since we have a $500,000 grant from the County of Ulster under the ARPA funding, it’s imperative that we start this project as soon as possible to get the funds spent within the confines of the program rules.”
The town tried for three straight years to secure a WIIA grant through the state Environmental Facilities Corporation before realizing they couldn’t risk another unsuccessful round. Instead, they will use the ARPA funds, with $800,000 of the remainder of the final project costs paid through the Ulster Water Fund capital reserve, $311,000 in unallocated fund balance reserves and the rest through a levy of residents in the Ulster Water District.
The project will replace a decades-old 450,000-gallon water tank that’s been patched over 60 times and springs several new leaks each year.
“The original tank was constructed in 1957 and it currently looks like a piece of Swiss cheese with a bunch of rubber plugs in it that are plugging the holes,” said Quigley during a December 2022 interview. “And the reason for that tank being a priority is that we’ve had a long standing issue with the five-million gallon water storage tank in the same location, which was constructed in 1985.”
In July 2023, Quigley said the town could not replace the larger tank until it replaced the smaller tank because of the possibility of having both come offline at the same time.
“At some point, I’m going to have to take the five-million gallon tank out of service and I will have no water pressure in the south end of the Ulster Water District,” he said. “So that’s why this is critical and is in fact being connected to the improvements being made at iPark 87 because iPark is limited by its contract with the City of Kingston through 1,500 gallons per minute…which is not enough to reach the fourth floor in a sprinkled building and not enough from what I’ve been told to adequately feed a fire sprinkler system in any of the buildings”
Quigley said back when IBM had its facility on the current iPark 87 property they had their own 250,000-gallon water tank.
“They recognized that they had a problem,” he said. “So what we’re attempting to do, uh, in facilitating the redevelopment of Park is to connect the iPark water and sewer infrastructure, which is basically a private water system within the campus area…to multiple points of the town water system, both for redundancy purposes and to increase the level of service.”
During a November 2022 town board meeting, Quigley noted that the 500,000-gallon tank primarily sprung new leaks when the weather was cold. In recent years, the tank has been used in emergency situations, like supplying the City of Kingston with 200,000 gallons of water per day during a 2022 drought.
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