SIDNEY – It’s been almost two decades in the making, and the village of Sidney is in the final stages of a $9 million upgrade to its water system that includes a new well, new mains, and the promise of crystal-clear tap water.
The system, when it’s turned on in late 2024, will solve two of the village’s issues: It needs more water, and it needs cleaner water.
In 2006, Sidney had two major sources of water: a well built in 1987 and the Peckham Reservoir. But 2006 was the year Sidney was hit by a massive flood that damaged the Peckham Reservoir Dam, putting the reservoir out of action. Luckily there was help from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) which stepped in and provided funds to repair the dam.
The village had a better idea, though: Instead of repairing the dam, find a better water source.
There are three sources most municipalities use for their water, explained Jason Preisman of Lamont Engineers, the company tapped by the village to handle the new system: the surface, such as reservoirs; springs running just near the surface; and groundwater — i.e., wells. Reservoirs like Peckham are at the bottom of the list. “Everyone’s moved away from surface water,” he said. “It’s too expensive to maintain and filter.”
Underground wells are preferred by water experts. They aren’t as likely to be affected by weather, and the water doesn’t need as much treatment; just think of what animals — and sometimes humans — do in and near a reservoir. So with FEMA’s blessing, the village decided to use some of that federal money to decommission the Peckham dam and use the rest to find a site for another well.
But why not simply put a new well right near the old one? Why spend the money and time to search for a different source when you have a perfectly good one already?
Because that well isn’t perfectly good.
The issue is manganese, a naturally occurring mineral found in water sources across the country. “Iron and manganese are very common in upstate New York,” Preisman said. In fact, the EPA estimates that 68-70% of groundwater sources in the U.S. have noticeable levels of manganese.
Humans need a certain amount of manganese to live. While you don’t want too much and you don’t want to inhale it, for the longest time no one payed much attention when it was in drinking water. In fact, in 1987, when what is now Sidney’s primary well was built, manganese wasn’t considered an issue, explained Shane Nordberg, Sidney’s chief water and wastewater operator, but by the time he took over in 2011, there was a bit more concern from the EPA on down.
A few scattered studies, the most recent in 2010, hinted that high levels of manganese in drinking water might not be good for infants’ neurological development, but the data wasn’t conclusive enough to trigger more than a few cautionary statements. The state of Minnesota for example, recommends that pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers drink bottled water if their local manganese levels are too high.
But what’s too high? While the EPA acknowledges that, “The greatest exposure to manganese is usually from food,” it doesn’t like to see levels above 300 micrograms per liter (mcg/l) in municipal water. Higher levels aren’t prohibited, though, because manganese falls under the agency’s secondary standards, meaning that municipalities only need to inform their customers when manganese levels are above that threshold.
What kinds of manganese levels do Sidney’s wells have? The primary well, according to the village’s latest published water-quality survey, has it at 480 mcg/l — 60% higher than what the EPA recommends. The secondary well is much worse. (That’s something residents noticed in early April when the primary well was offline for a few days for maintenance.) The village dutifully published this information, knowing that it was in the process of fixing the issue.
Whether or not manganese is a health problem, one thing it definitely does is make water cloudy. That’s especially true, Nordberg explained, when that water is chlorinated like Sidney’s.
Filtration was technically an option, he said, but it would cost millions off the bat and require expensive and ongoing maintenance — plus finding a place to dispose of the concentrated manganese — all for what amounts to, as Preisman put it, “an aesthetic issue, not a health issue.”
Still, just because it’s an aesthetic issue doesn’t mean the village wasn’t interested in clearing its water. And as it needed to replace the Peckham Reservoir as a source anyway, dealing with the high manganese levels would fix both problems. The trustees sent Nordberg on a quest for a new water source. In late 2012, the search began.
Finding a site
Working with Lamont Engineers and consulting hydrologic maps, Nordberg began looking for places that might make a good well site. Over the next several years (getting permits to drill wells takes time), they searched and they tested. A well needed to be reasonably close to the existing system, have low levels of manganese and other contaminants, and produce the 650,000 to 700,000 gallons a day the village requires.
One at a time they drilled. One at a time they struck out — three times, in fact. Finally, though, in a last-ditch effort and with FEMA money running out, “We struck gold,” Nordberg said. A site in the town of Unadilla not far from the Tall Pines Campground had plenty of water, “almost untraceable manganese [and] very little iron.” Lamont, it seemed, had tapped into “an extremely clean aquifer.”
“This new well,” said Nordberg with a satisfied smile, “is better than anything we could imagine.”
Finding crystal clear water was only the first step, of course. Permits needed to be gotten from Unadilla, the departments of health and environmental conservation, and even the Susquehanna River Basin Commission. Clear water comes with red tape.
Then the well needs to be dug, pumps installed, water mains connected — including pipes across both the Susquehanna and Unadilla rivers — and the pumping station upgraded from its lovely but old-school analog monitoring technology.
None of that is cheap, and Sidney isn’t rich.
Paying for it
While a natural disaster started Sidney down the path to a new water system, a different kind of crisis is helping the village pay for it: The 2008 worldwide financial meltdown.
When the dust of lawsuits cleared following that mess, New York state had in its coffers billions of dollars from various legal settlements. It chose to put much of that money into infrastructure projects, notably water, Nordberg explained. In 2015 New York passed the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act (WIIA), making literally billions of dollars available for municipal drinking-water systems over at least the next several years.
So-called WIIA grants would pay for up to 60% for eligible projects, and Sidney’s was eligible. Thus on top of the FEMA money used to find the new well, the village was awarded a grant by the state to cover $5.4 million of the $9 million project to bring that well’s water to residents.
And the rest? For that, the village can thank the EPA and the Safe Water Drinking Act — specifically a 1996 addition to the law that established the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. The DWSRF gives money to states to provide low-interest loans to cities, towns, and villages so they can provide clean water.
Sidney, it turns out, meets the law’s “hardship financing” criteria, making it eligible for a 30-year, interest-free loan from the fund. “Free money, basically,” Preisman said.
With the site chosen, the permits in hand, and the money in place, in 2019 the village told Lamont Engineers to make the new water system happen. The company would drill the well, install the pumping equipment, and add about two miles of new water mains to connect the well to the existing water system. It will also be replacing some pipes that have been in place since the 1800s.
As of today, “We’re about three-quarters of the way done,” said Preisman; the project is on time and expected to be complete by the end of 2024. What to expect aside from the clearer, manganese-free water will be two major changes for residents of the village of Sidney when that happens: water meters and water billing.
The meters are required as part of the permitting process for a new well, mostly to ensure that any leaks are found immediately. “If the water coming out of the well doesn’t match what the [cumulative] meters say is being used,” Nordberg said, “You’ve got a leak.”
Meter installation in the village has started, with a handful of mostly commercial properties already sporting them. Residents are being notified, bit by bit, when they’re required to make an appointment for a meter installation. (Those who put it off too long risk having their water turned off.)
With those new meters will come new water rates that are designed to be more equitable than the current flat-rate system, Nordberg explained. “To a certain extent it’s an equalizer,” he said. “Right now you could have an elderly couple paying the same amount as a family of six.”
With the new system, every property inside the village will pay a flat rate of $44 per quarter for up to 12,500 gallons of water ($75.75 for those outside the village). Homes or businesses that use more will pay $3.52 for each additional 1,000 gallons, according to Deputy Mayor Victor Tartaglia.
That’s important because, as Tartaglia explained, the increased revenue from metering the water is expected to cover the payments on that zero-interest loan. It’s not guaranteed, of course, because it’s based on usage estimates. “We’ll need to study what our revenue will be,” Tartaglia said. Actual usage figures, as they start coming in, will be more important than speculation.
If usage (and thus revenue) is lower than anticipated, could the flat or per-gallon rates be increased? Yes, Tartaglia said, it’s possible, but he was confident that any increase would be limited to raising the base rate no more than $100 to $200 per year.
Although the water department will read the meters - these days it’s done wirelessly — no one needs to come inside - “We want to train people to read their own meters,” Nordberg said, so they can notice if there’s a broken or leaky pipe on the premises. “A leaky toilet? It’s shocking how much that can change your (usage) in a quarter.”
Besides making the water rates more equitable, the hope is that charging for additional usage will help conserve water — less water used means fewer chemicals needed to treat it.
There’s one final effect of the new system, Nordberg said, one that “will make some people love me and some people hate me.”
Chlorine is added to kill any bacteria, and the law requires every building in the system to have a minimum level. That means properties closer to where the chlorine is added have higher chlorine levels to ensure properties at the end of the line meet the minimum.
The new well will essentially swap the beginning and end of the water lines, meaning buildings that today have a lower chlorine level will see it go up, and people with a higher level will see it go down. Ironically, thanks to the vagaries of chemistry, lower chlorine levels tend to smell more chlorinated. Nordberg expects complaints from both ends — those who taste it more and those who smell it more.
One thing that everyone will notice is that the water is clearer, thanks to lower levels of manganese and iron, and the taste will be different, like going from mineral water to spring water. “It’ll be a higher quality that (the town) had in the 1950s,” Preisman said.
When all is said and done — when the well is dug, the pipes laid, the pumps turned on, and the valves open, Sidney residents will find the water flowing from their taps as crystal clear and mineral free as they’re likely to find anywhere.
As Preisman put it, “(Sidney) is literally taking its water system from the 1950s and making it a modern system.”
