City Offering To Sell Water To Area Towns

By MAX R. MITCHELL

Johnson News Service

If the towns of Lisbon and Oswegatchie and the village of Heuvelton can finance a water district, city officials are still interested in selling them water.

After years of eyeing the creation of an intermunicipal water district along routes 68 and 812, town and village officials are looking to federal stimulus money to connect about 1,000 homes and businesses there to the city's water system.

Oswegatchie Supervisor Alfred J. Nichols said the towns are looking to separate the project into three phases and hope to have individual grant applications for the municipalities within the next few weeks.

"Even though there are phases, they could all be going on simultaneously," he said.

He said the projects and grant applications are being developed by engineers from Burley-Guminiak & Associates, Canton.

He declined to comment on potential costs of the project, but said the municipalities likely will be looking for no-interest loans for the project as well.

City Manager Arthur J. Sciorra said providing water for the towns probably will require the city system to produce for an additional hour each day, but it will not require any capital improvements or water meters.

"With what we have in place, we could certainly handle that capacity and a lot more," Mr. Sciorra said. "If we had development of Diamond and other properties on the waterfront, we have enough capacity to provide to those projects as well. There's sufficient capacity to handle our own growth needs as well as the needs of the towns."

There is no municipal system for Lisbon, Oswegatchie or Heuvelton, and most businesses and private homes depend on wells.

In the city, the flat water rate is $239 and the metered rate is $2.94 per 1,000 gallons.

"The city is very much interested in being a water provider for the system," Mr. Sciorra said. "We want to promote the economic growth of the region."

Heuvelton Mayor Barbara A. Lashua, Lisbon Supervisor James W. Armstrong and engineer Timothy A. Burley did not return phone calls Friday.