“While state-ordered fixes to the Duanesburg sewage treatment plant aren’t completed, the state is letting the town connect some homes to its expanded new $3 million sewer district at Routes 7 and 20.
This week, the state Department of Environmental Conservation agreed that the town can hook the new system into homes where septic systems are already determined to to be “failing” by state health or town officials.
DEC initially put the town on notice in November 2016 that it could not add about 100 homes and businesses in its new Sewer District No. 3 until it deals with long-standing problems with its sewage treatment plant, which has have been fouling a tributary of the Hudson River.
Covering the hamlet at the intersection of routes 7 and 20, the new sewer district would include hookups for more than 100 residential and commercial properties spread across more than 200 acres.
Information on how many of those systems are currently classified as failing was not available from DEC or the town.
The original state order set a January 2017 deadline for the town to submit engineering reports on how to make both short- and long-term improvements to the plant, as well as measure the impact of the new district on the facility.
Treated sewage from the plant goes into the Normanskill, a stream that flows through Duanesburg and into Albany County before reaching the Hudson River at Bethlehem.
Under a Nov. 27 agreement signed by Regional DEC Director Keith Goertz and Town Supervisor Roger Tidball, that deadline has been extended to Thursday. That agreement also set a Jan. 31, 2018, deadline for the town to finish improvements at the treatment plant.
Attempts to reach Tidball and Albany lawyer Terresa Bakner, who represents the town in the case with DEC, were not successful Wednesday.
The Town Board voted in July 2015 to create the new sewer district, which covers Route 7 west of the village, and the areas around the intersection of routes 7 and 20 and Depot Street.
Tests at the treatment plant — some dating back to early 2013 — show a pattern of inadequate sewage treatment, according to the November 2017 DEC order. Those deficiencies include unsafe levels of sewage bacteria; nitrogen and phosphorus, which can fuel algae growth; and water levels that show depleted oxygen, which can kill fish and other aquatic life.
DEC reported 73 different monthly violations between February 2013 and August 2016. DEC had renewed the plant’s water pollution permit in March 2015, setting it to expire in March 2020.”
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Albany Times Union 29 November 2017.