Grant to help replace water line from Hillside tank to Rt. 4

works weld a water tank
Workers replace the Hillside water tank in the fall of 2018. The village has received a state grant to help fund replacement of a main water line running from the Hillside holding tank to Rt. 4 in the village.

The Village of Stillwater has been awarded a New York State Water Infrastructure Improvement Grant totaling $733,418 to pay about 60 percent of the cost of replacing a deteriorating major water line in the village.

The village grant is part of $416 million in monies awarded to municipalities by the state Environmental Facilities Corp for infrastructure projects that protect public health or improve water quality, Gov. Cuomo announced this week.

The Governor has dedicated $3 billion for water quality protection across New York. In this funding round, $416 million in grant funding supports nearly $1.6 billion in total project costs for vital drinking and wastewater infrastructure projects statewide.

The village submitted its grant application in September through its engineering firm Adirondack Mountain Engineering, PC. The project calls for replacing the water line from the Hillside water tank down to Rt. 4. The supply line from the storage tank into the distribution system is more than 83 years old and consists of a 10-inch heavily corroded and tuberculated cast iron pipe.

The line is approximately 4,840 linear feet in length and needs replacement. The total replacement cost is estimated at $1,222,364.

Replacing the water line will put a wrap on a more extensive project which included replacing the outdated Hillside water holding tank in the fall of 2018.Demolition crews removed the old corroded water tank to make way for a new glass-lined tank. The old tank was in disrepair and needed to be replaced. The tank replacement cost about $325,000 and was paid for by reserves from the General Electric lawsuit settlement.

Though the water tank project was complete more than a year ago, the Hillside pipeline replacement had to be put on hold until grant money could be secured. The village had applied for other grants over the years to help fund the work but those grants were denied. This is the first grant application to be successful.

“We are extremely pleased with today’s news,” said Stillwater Mayor Judith Wood-Shaw. “This has been a long process to secure this funding to support our local taxpayers and we’d like to thank the governor and our elected officials for recognizing the great need we have for funding for Stillwater.”