水果派AV

Throop Supervisor Eric Ridley remotely addressed the Cayuga County Legislature during a Feb. 22 meeting聽about creating a new water district for Centerport, Reyer and Sine Roads using federal American Rescue Plan Act funds from both the county and the town.

Throop already has two water districts. Ridley said Throop has been engaging with the Cayuga County Water and Sewer Authority about bringing water to a section of Centerport Road, adding that there have been water issues in that area for years. A report was conducted in 2009 and brought forward to the town, but the project did not move forward at the time.

"So upon taking office I was contacted by several people that live along that route who brought in samples of their water and frankly, as some of you know who have either seen the samples or spoken to me at any length, it's pretty disgusting water that really should be rectified if possible," he said.

The proposed project would serve about 35 properties.

Water infrastructure is a dedicated allowable use under ARPA, Ridley said, which "doesn't require any sort of massaging of the language or being creative in how a project is classified, so obviously this project would fit very well."聽

Several different forms of funding can be applied for, in addition to the potential ARPA money.

Ridley said his $400,000 request of the county represents "plus or minus 3% of the total ARPA award to Cayuga County, and Throop's population is just over 3% of the county."

Cayuga County's total ARPA funding will be about $14.8 million.

He also talked about a plan to contribute Throop's own ARPA funds as well.聽

"The town is not coming to you to ask for something that we would not dedicate funds ourselves to," he said. "I am more than willing to bring before my board a 50% allocation of our ARPA funds. It represents just shy of $100,000."

Ridley said that ideally, the county water and sewer authority would lead the project in terms of construction, because there would be "pretty significant savings there."

"As you know, we've been working through funding sources and trying to figure out if we can also get pubic funding while also having the project not be competitively bid and not pay prevailing wage, which the CCWSA would be able to do, which would then make this project very affordable for the residents, and would bring them clean water," he continued.

Jeanine Wilson, the executive director for the county water and sewer authority, said the authority may be able to "hold the cost down a bit" with its own construction services but noted that residents of the potential water district have not yet voted on the project.聽

"It's not ready to go to vote yet. The application needs to be done for the funding, and then when all of that information is there, the people would vote on it at a district formation. It has not been formed as a district because we haven't gotten all of the information at this point. They definitely would want to know how much it would cost before they voted on it," Wilson said.聽

If the project was completed, the authority would handle the operation, maintenance and billing for that service area.

Ridley said that if residents vote the project down "based on the numbers that they see and whether or not they can afford it, because that is what it's going to come down to," then the county would get its money back.

A resident of the area was at the meeting with some samples of the raw "that's pulled from their well," Ridley said.

"It really is a terrible situation that they're in that impacts their health and safety and also their quality of life," he said.

Legislator Jim Basile raised a concern about the $400,000 being asked of the county for the project based on the relatively small number of people it would serve.

"I look at it as a public health matter rather than dollars and cents," Ridley said. "I can't think of a better project than the health and safety of the people who live in a place where probably a lot of us wouldn't bath our kids in the water that comes out of the tap."

The Legislature has not yet decided on the disbursement of its ARPA funds.