Town Board Gives Backing for Roosevelt Drive Water Extension

(This story was written by Tom Bartley)

Bedford’s Consolidated Water District should be extended to take in properties now served by Roosevelt Drive’s aging, homegrown waterworks, the town board voted this week.

A million-dollar upgrade, it would replace the local plumbing of the Roosevelt Drive Water Users Association. That aging facility has carried water to and from the neighborhood for more than 60 years. 

While the proposed extension still faces state scrutiny and the possibility of a referendum, Tuesday’s preliminary approval was seen as a major step toward linking members of the past-its-prime local supply with the town system. There is consensus—including from town and county officials, and even the residents themselves—that the local system can no longer get the job done. 

For Elizabeth Bailey, president of the water-users association, the switch just makes sense. In an interview the day  after a well-attended but surprisingly quiet public hearing, she recalled county health officials’ ultimatum last November: repair the decades-old system—a major overhaul—or replace it.

Joining the town waterworks would be “better for everybody, even the people who have private wells,” she said, so the association contacted town officials. Half of the Roosevelt Drive neighborhood’s 44 lots are served by the water-users association. Only those 22 families, all expected to tie into the enlarged town district, would pay the construction costs. Of the area’s remaining 22 lots, private wells serve a dozen of them and 10 others, the town concludes, do not need water. Homeowners who join the district down the road, such as anyone living on one of the undeveloped parcels in the future, would have to pay towards the project, according to town paperwork in the meeting's packet. Costs for them would vary according to what the outstanding debt for the project is.

Public Works Commissioner Kevin Winn led Tuesday’s discussion before a regular meeting of the town board, telling some two-dozen people in the town house about the project's price tag, for construction costs and other charges. Only residents benefiting from the expanded service would repay that money, their charges spread over 30 years. In return, Winn said, the extension should provide softer water and improve service, water pressure and, with the addition of hydrants, fire protection.

According to the packet material, the cost would be $977,611.25, which would be repaid over a 30-year period, assuming an interest rate of 2.9 percent. This would mean a cost of $2,269.92 annually for each household.

Still, issues like cost could provoke a permissive referendum, though no organized efforts have been reported. Residents have 30 days to petition for the vote and would need the signatures of five percent of the new district’s property owners. In addition, plans for the district extension—particularly its price tag—must be reviewed and approved by state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

“I’m concerned about the comptroller’s office,” Supervisor Lee Roberts said in an interview, “because there are guidelines about how much people can pay.” But, she noted, “I just don’t know what the alternative is.”

Bailey, the neighborhood association president and a former town councilman, was blunter, asking, “What’s he going to do? Come and say, ‘OK, I’ve got Plan B’? . . . Honestly, we’ve got to do something.”