By Joshua Walther
SCHOHARIE - The Schoharie Town Board heard an overview of the Schoharie Business Park engineering project from Mike Harrington of Lamont Engineers last Wednesday evening.
According to Supervisor Ben Oevering, the Town successfully secured approximately 3.3 million dollars in county and grant funding to make improvements to the water and sewer plant located at the far end of the business park.
For over a year, Mr. Harrington has coordinated the project’s progress with the Town, including the introduction of a third sand filter bed to the plant and two test production wells as part of the first phase.
However, he elaborated that their steady momentum has been halted due to recent archaeological conflicts with the areas they’re attempting to modify.
Both the sand filter bed and the furthest well from the plant must be looked into more closely, as archaeological discoveries may be unearthed before the Town begins more extensive work, but the second well is ready to be connected to the plant at any time.
Member James Schultz asked what would happen to the project in the event that relics are uncovered, to which Mr. Harrington explained that it’s unlikely anything would be halted entirely.
“If they discover something, they’d most likely document it and move on,” he said. “It’s very rare that it would stop construction, and even if it does, there’s procedures for everything.”
“None of this is a deal-breaker, it’ll just take a bit of time and money for the work to be done,” he concluded.
Mr. Harrington said that this first phase will be delayed until they’re contacted with permission to keep moving, and when asked about the next step, he said that they’ve drafted a conceptual idea for the wellhouse and have charted out an appropriate area for a water storage tank, with a capacity of 60,000 to 75,000 gallons.
In other news, Supervisor Oevering told the Board that the Town has secured another grant from the county ARPA fund for $70,000.
The money is expressly earmarked for a study to determine if the Town can extend water and sewer from the business park, run it underneath I-88, and bring it to the other side by Zicha Road.
The idea didn’t sit well with member Marion Jaqueway, who thought that the Town would be playing favorites by connecting the properties across the highway and raising their property values.
“We’re just concentrating on one section,” she noted. “We might not be able to get that interest back in any real way.”
Before discussion could arise, Supervisor Oevering explained that the Town already has the grant, and the study is purely to see if the idea is feasible or not, so they could still decide on whether they should actually do it in the future.
With everyone’s hesitation quelled, the Board passed a motion to allow Mr. Harrington and Lamont Engineers to begin the proceedings.
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