When it comes to a $1.13 million state grant to help fund the replacement of a 66-year old water storage tanks, officials in the Town of Ulster are hoping three is a magic number.
“This is our third application,” said Supervisor James E. Quigley, III during an interview with Hudson Valley One. “We’ve been turned down the prior two times.”
What hasn’t changed since the first two rounds of applications for Water Infrastructure Improvement funding is the need to replace a 450,000-gallon tank built in 1957 to serve the Ulster Water District.
“It currently is like Swiss cheese, which means that it has numerous holes in it and it’s been patched in countless times,” Quigley said, adding that the tank has been patched around 60 times in recent years and springs at least five new holes every year.
The tank sits beside an even larger 4.8-million gallon tank built in 1985, which had its interior recoated over a decade ago to help preserve; that tank will also eventually have to be replaced, likely within the next decade.
“The problem is when it becomes a necessity to replace that tank, I need storage capacity on the south end of the district to be able to meet operational requirements, i.e. pressure and quantity for fire flows,” Quigley said. “So it’s critical that we replace this (smaller) tank in advance of any consideration of replacing the major tank…At some point, I’m going to have to take the five-million gallon tank out of service. I will have no water pressure in the south end of the Ulster Water District and no water capacity.”
There is also an increased need in reliable service to feed the iPark 87 project, which currently has a water service contract with the City of Kingston for 1,500-gallons-per-minute providing around 30-pounds of pressure.
“That 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., “Which is why IBM had that 250,000 gallon elevated storage tank on their site. They recognized that they had a problem.”
Quigley said replacing the 450,000-gallon water tank will help facilitate the iPark 87 redevelopment of the former IBM, and former TechCity site by connecting the property to multiple points of the town’s system, both for redundancy concerns and to increase the level of service. That would involve replacing around 2,000-feet of 12-inch water pipes, valve replacement, pipe reinforcement, an updated metering system. Quigley said the infrastructure at the iPark 87 site is the same as when IBM built the complex nearly 70 years ago.
Replacing the town’s 450,000-gallon tank will cost an estimated $1.88 million, with the town seeking the maximum $1.13 million, or 40 percent in grant funding. The remainder would be covered by $500,000 in American Rescue Act Plan money and $252,000 from the town’s general fund budget.
While the need remains the same as it was when the town sought grant funding to replace its smaller water storage tank twice before, there is a belief that other changes may yield success this time around, including Governor Kathy Hochul’s enthusiasm for the iPark 87 project, spearheaded by National Resources, which purchased the former TechCity in early June 2022, including the exchange of 18 parcels for the eradication of $10.82 million in unpaid taxes by former owner Allen Ginsberg. The property deeds for the parcels were transferred to the Ulster County Economic Development Alliance, and were then sold to National Resources for $5 million to be paid over a five-year period, with a commitment to cover a minimum of $7 million in environmental cleanup costs, removal of debris and completion of interior demolition of abandoned buildings.
“Apparently the governor’s interest in the Town of Ulster is because of the amount of support that she’s dedicated to iPark 87’s redevelopment,” Quigley said. “I’m hoping that that plays to our advantage.”
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