Maybrook keeps racking up awards when it comes to the Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funded Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) administered by Orange County.

First created by HUD in 1974, these grants are designed to enable communities to address local needs by pursuing a variety of infrastructure, disabled accessibility and community development projects. Maybrook has won a CDBG every year it has applied, including to install sidewalks along village streets and erect the Senior Citizen Center. In the most recent past, however, the village has used CDBG funding for improvements in its sanitary sewer system, re-lining as many pipes as possible until that year’s funding ran out.

Mayor Dennis Leahy admits that sewer re-linings are not glamorous projects; but they are crucial, he says, to the health of the village’s infrastructure.

“We’ve been very successful with it,” he said, “and we’re in a good position now (to win a grant this year).”

The village board held a public hearing May 22, seeking public input into possible projects for which to seek funding. No member of the public expressed any ideas. The village board met in special session Monday to unanimously approve an agreement with Orange County to apply for this year’s grant and to unanimously approve a resolution addressing non-discrimination in CDBG projects, a HUD requirement. A final unanimously approved resolution described the village’s intention to apply for a CDBG grant to fund more sewer re-linings. Once the County receives applications from all municipalities who wish to apply, the County Office of Community Development will decide how much funding will be allocated to each winning application.

To dates over the years, Maybrook has received $550,000 in CDBG funding for sewer re-linings.

Last year, Maybrook received a $185,000 three-year CDBG grant for sewer re-linings. Although that multi-year grant is still ongoing, Leahy said the County urged the village to apply for another grant for the current year since it has such a great track record in terms of using all the grant funding within the specified time limit. This new grant application will also be for sewer re-lining since, Leahy said, “we’re going to keep the ball rolling”.

There are multiple reasons for such a great need for sewer re-linings, noted both Leahy and Village Engineer Sean Hoffman.

“The pipes are very old and were neglected,” Leahy said. “We had a lot of catch-up to do. And we had a problem with infiltration.”

The pipes leaked and were cracked or broken in spots, leading to extra flows into the village sewer plant.

“The N.Y.S. DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) was after us for high flows at the sewer plant,” Hoffman said. “This (the re-linings) has dramatically reduced those flows. Reduced flows also reduces our costs at the sewer plant because there is less flow to treat.”