Lloyd calculates water and sewer capacities

By Mark Reynolds
Posted 9/18/19

Recently Engineer Ray Jurkowski, of CPL, analyzed the water and sewer capacities in Lloyd and explained his findings to the Town Board.

“The basis of the water and sewer capacity had arisen …

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Lloyd calculates water and sewer capacities

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Recently Engineer Ray Jurkowski, of CPL, analyzed the water and sewer capacities in Lloyd and explained his findings to the Town Board.

“The basis of the water and sewer capacity had arisen because of the various projects that are coming before the Planning Board and the commercial growth that the town is experiencing, as far as the requests for sewer and water extensions,” he said.

Jurkowski said the sources of water for Lloyd come from the Hudson River and from reservoirs and a few drilled wells located up on Illinois Mountain. He said the facility uses reservoir and well water “as much as possible until the summer months and when the reservoirs start going dry, we have to go back onto Hudson River water. It really depends on the time of year.”

Jurkowski said when considering capacity, “we are also looking at the potential impact that these developments may have, not only on the ultimate capacity of the facility but also the impact it may take when you have to go to a second shift. Right now all the water that is produced in a day for the average daily usage by the public is produced in a single shift by the plant staff.”

In his Water Capacity Report, Jurkowski highlighted his conclusions in two “pie” charts. The first one shows that in a single 8 to 10 hour shift, with two filters running, the town can produce 1.05 million gallons per day, which includes the wells. He said the average daily flow in 2018 totaled 502,790 gallons per day.

“We’re running at about 48% of capacity of that single shift of what we’re able to produce in a day,” he said.

Jurkowski acknowledged that the town has approved several development projects and others are in the process of being reviewed – Mountainside Woods is in construction and Dollar General is completed - which will require additional capacity. Others under consideration are the Views, the Village of the Hudson Valley and Falcon Ridge. He said if these are approved the town will need to produce an additional 207,305 gallons per day, “of what we are considering dedicated capacity.”

Jurkowski said when you add all of this together, “it leaves 32%, or 339,906 gallons per day, that is available for future expansion or build-out in the district.” He said this amount of water would be able to provide water for 600 new homes.
Jurkowski acknowledged that if the town needed more water than these figures, based on the existing water facility, a second shift would have to be added at the department. He said that if the current number of projects were approved the town could hit their ceiling by 2025.

“It’s coming up pretty soon. Keep in mind we are talking about replacing the existing filtration system and putting in a new [water] storage tank, so that way we can deal with these new improvements as well,” he said. “But if something were to happen where that project doesn’t take place, at least the information is here before the Town Board.”

Jurkowski’s 2nd pie chart shows totals when running two shifts with three filters at the water plant.

“That provides for a capacity of 2.1 million gallons per day,” he said.

Jurkowski said original design of the water plant put the overall capacity at 3 million gallons per day, “but over time because of inefficiencies of the filtration system as it ages, the efficiency within the clarifiers, the sand beds and so forth, that efficiency drops off dramatically. So that’s why we’re looking at a full build-out and utilizing a number of 2.1 million instead of the original design capacity of 3 million gallons per day.”

Jurkowski said the current filters are at the end of their useful lifespan.

“They’re beyond 30 years and technology has changed, regulations have changed as far as the EPA and the Department of Health, so it is time to look toward replacing them as a whole,” he suggested.

Jurkowski said he did a similar study of the town’s wastewater capacity. He pointed out that the wastewater plant was upgraded several years ago and has a current capacity of 1.75 million gallons per day.

“Right now, based on the 2018 flow, we’re just about at 1. 1 million gallons per day on average. That represents about 63% of the total capacity of that facility,” he said.

Jurkowski said he added the dedicated capacity of 207,305 gallons per day for projects “in the queue or are currently being built and that results in approximately 25% of the available capacity being there for future growth within the existing district or the district extension, of 441,695 gallons per day; again pretty significant.”

Jurkowski said according to DEC and the Department of Health, once the facilities “get to a point where they are utilizing 85% of their design capacity, it’s at that point that they require the town to look actually at making improvements. In our case we’re not going to hit that threshold; the threshold we’re going to hit is the useful life of the equipment itself and that’s the problem we’re running into with the water facility.”

Jurkowski said it is difficult to determine what improvements are needed because it is not known exactly where in town development will take place.

“That’s when the other feasibility reports come into play, to see what takes place and what is required regarding improvements in the infrastructure and how is that going to be dealt with as far as developers paying for that infrastructure,” he said.