Officials cut the ribbon on the completion of Phase One of the West Side Sewer Expansion Project (June 12, 2023)
Officials cut the ribbon Monday in Stow on Phase 1 of the Westside Sewer Extension.
The $16.9 million project brings sewer and water along Route 394 from Ashville to Stow and services approximately 450 developed properties in the Town of North Harmony.
Chautauqua County Legislature Chairman and South & Center Chautauqua Lake Sewer District Board member Pierre Chagnon said the project began nine and a half years ago when then County Executive Vince Horrigan put together a steering group to look at options for putting in public sewers around Chautauqua Lake, “Nine years ago this month was the first meeting of the project team, working with the O’Brien and Gere Engineering Team, to begin developing the integrated sewage management plan for Chautauqua Lake. The integrated sewage management plan was completed in October of 2014. And the highest priority in that plan was given to completing the sewers on the westside of the lake.”
South & Center Chautauqua Lake Sewer District Board member Tom Erlandson had done two surveys in the 1960s and 1980s to ask homeowners about putting sewers around Chautauqua Lake.
He said sewering is important not just for the lake but for public health as well, “It will remove septic tanks from near people’s wells. 41%, in my surveys around the lake, 41% of the houses were contaminating their own wells with their own sewage.”
Phase one of the project was financed through a combination of grants and New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation Clean Water State Revolving Fund funding at a rate of zero percent for 30 years.
Officials plan to break ground on Phase 2 of the project in Fall 2024.
Leave a Reply