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Potsdam village wastewater treatment plant continues to run on generator power after failure, flooding last month

Posted 6/22/21

BY ADAM ATKINSON North County This Week POTSDAM — The village’s wastewater treatment plant continues to run on generator power following a catastrophic failure last month. A breaker failure which …

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Potsdam village wastewater treatment plant continues to run on generator power after failure, flooding last month

Posted

BY ADAM ATKINSON
North County This Week

POTSDAM — The village’s wastewater treatment plant continues to run on generator power following a catastrophic failure last month.

A breaker failure which led to a sewage backup in the administration building on May 11 stalled the municipalities ongoing rehabilitation of the plant and set the $3 million project back a few months.

“I talked to NYMIR (New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal, the village’s insurance carrier) the other day. They said it could be months, it could be up to a year,” Village administrator Greg Thompson told the village board at their meeting Monday, June 21.

The news drew an audible sharp breath from Trustee Stephen Warr.

“Because the plant is new, they are trying to take a really close look at it, they are trying to figure things out. They said just be patient and follow the course they are laying out,” Thompson said.

He said staff at the plant are continuing 24-7 shift coverage at the facility until the village gets to the point where they can bring line power back into the plant.

“Once we are given the green light to do that we can go back to regular 8-hour shifts,” he said. Thompson said he is hoping that is sooner rather than later but the village doesn’t have a lot of information from the insurance company at the moment. He said 4 different engineers have inspected the plant at this point to try to determine the cause of the failure and subsequent flood. “And all we keep hearing is, ’As soon as we get the reports we will let you guys know what we find,’” he said. “That’s basically all we have right now that is definitive on the sewer plant situation.”

The plant suffered a complete power outage on May 11. The generator at the administration building turned on as it was designed in such a situation but was not able to deliver power to the facility due to a closed breaker on the plant side of the power input, Thompson explained last month.

Incoming septage found a breach in the wall between the administration building and the wet wells and ended up flooding the administration building with approximately 35 feet of raw sewage. Village workers discovered the situation the next morning, pumped out the sewage and got the plant up and running and treating sewage on generator power.

During discussion at the June 21 meeting, Warr expressed frustration with the situation.

“So we have a fabulous project down there at the wastewater treatment plant that doesn’t work,” Warr said.

“It’s working right now, but it’s working on generator power,” Thompson corrected.

“Okay so we had a major catastrophe opening day,” Warr said. “And now we are going to be saddled with thousands of dollars of overtime that neither the insurance company nor the project people are going to cover. Our taxpayer are going to have to cover that.”

“We haven’t been told that yet. The overtime is still a part of the claim, because it's a necessity handed down to us by the state and we have to man it,” Thompson said.

“And yet, with all of the people involved, no one can tell us what happened?” Warr asked.

“As of right now we have no definitive answers,” Thompson said. Thompson said he and Matt Cooper from the engineering firm Barton & Loguidice (the firm in charge of the rehab project) are both waiting on reports from the insurance company.

“I mean, it’s not going to be a pump motor,” Warr said. “It’s an electric failure so its in the electrical department.”

“I understand your frustration, you’re no more… you’re probably less frustrated than I am because I deal with it every day. I’m on the phone everyday,” Thompson said. “There is nothing we can do right now until they (NYMIR) give us the green light.”

Later during the meeting, Cooper presented the board a couple change orders and three final payments to firms which closed out three contracts on the project.

During his presentation, Cooper said the project overall came in under budget even with the addition of several wish list items totaling about $700,000.

The board approved change orders of -$34,028.32 to Blue Heron Construction and -$213.14 to Watson Electric. 
Final payments approved by the board included $47,169.06 to Blue Heron Construction, $10,000 to Burns Brothers Contractors and two payments of $2,375 and $96,332.10 to Watson Electric. 
Trustees Abby Lee and Maggie McKenna both voted nay on the $96,332.10 to Watson Electric in light of the current issues at the plant following the breaker failure in May.