New Windsor, NY – Town to Sign Water Pact with Village of Kiryas Joel

New Windsor, NY – The New Windsor Town Board is expected to approve a water agreement with Kiryas Joel at tonight’s Town Board meeting. For approximately one year the town has been negotiating an agreement that would allow its southern neighbor to connect into New Windsor’s tap to the Catskill Aqueduct.

Town Supervisor George Green told the board Monday night during a workshop meeting that all “associated costs are on Kiryas Joel.”

According to Green, were Kiryas Joel to install a separate tap, the Town of New Windsor would have been unable to obtain water from the aqueduct for an extended period time, possibly months depending on the type of tap. A separate tap would have required the aqueduct to be drained and shut down, causing New Windsor to use water from its emergency backup – Brown’s Pond.

New Windsor has a siphon tap. In the event New Windsor needs a separate bottom tap, Kiryas Joel would incur the expense. Green said it’s unlikely a bottom tap would ever be needed because of an interconnect being constructed between the Catskill and Delaware aqueducts.

It could be some time before Kiryas Joel comes off of New Windsor’s tap, as the village needs to secure a permit from New York City, which controls the aqueduct.

“They have a long ways to go,” Green said yesterday.

Kiryas Joel has been seeking to construct a pipeline to the Catskill Aqueduct for several years to meet the needs of its growing population. In February, Orange County dropped a lawsuit it had filed against Kiryas Joel for a proposed water pipeline to the aqueduct.

It was the second of two lawsuits and it charged that the village had not adequately assessed the pipeline’s impact on the county’s sewer infrastructure, even after the village prepared an Amended Final Environmental Impact Statement as directed by the Appellate Division. In February the County Legislature approved a resolution that its wastewater treatment plant in Harriman will meet capacity needs.