By ADAM ATKINSON

CANTON — The village’s planned purchase and installation of two new sewer blowers at its waste treatment facility will be funded through a financing arrangement using money from the village general fund and a $100,000 grant from NYSERDA.

The Village of Canton was awarded the grant for the sewer blower project by virtue of being designated a Clean Energy Community under NYSERDA’s program of the same name, a spokesperson for NYSERDA confirmed last week.

The two existing blowers, key pieces of equipment in processing the 185,000,000 gallons of residential sewage produced each year in the village, are worn out and only one is currently working. Village DPW Supervisor Brien Hallahan said he didn’t know if the existing systems would last a year, and the maintenance was costly.

Contracts for the work have already been awarded to Continental Construction and Watson Electric for a total of $271,416 for the purchase of two new sewer blowers and installation, with Tisdell and Associates to provide engineering services for $11,900 and with National Grid for $15,000 for a new transformer to handle the new equipment. The entire project is expected to cost about $300,000.

The 2018 budget has an appropriation of $125,000 to help cover the cost, $100,000 of which is from the NYSERDA grant.

At the village board meeting May 18, the Board of Trustees discussed their financing options to cover the remaining cost.

After some discussion at previous meetings about possibly raising sewer rates to cover the amount, the board agreed to borrow from the village general fund, loan it into the village sewer fund with repayment back to the general fund on a 5-year amortization schedule.

The repayment would include interest payments.

“You have to pay yourself interest. We might as well pay ourselves interest rather than a bank or someone else,” Dalton said.

The interest payments will be 18 cents per $1,000 borrowed. A three-year schedule, the other repayment option, would require 33 cents per $1000 interest.