SARANAC LAKE - Although trustees were not happy with the $2,500 fine it contained, the village Board of Trustees voted unanimously Monday evening to sign a consent order with the state Department of Environmental Conservation obligating it to have a written corrective plan to end leaching from its sand and salt pile on Van Buren Street by Oct. 30.

"The options are still ours," said village Manager Marty Murphy. "They're just committing us to a deadline."

The vote was 4-0; Mayor Tom Michael was absent.

The pile, which contains about 5 percent salt, sits near a brook that flows into Lake Colby. Last month, the Adirondack Council threatened to sue the village by mid-August if the pile isn't moved or covered, prompting the DEC to take action against the village.

There are a number of short-term possibilities, such as a tarp, but Murphy said the only long-term one, other than moving the pile, is "concrete or solid containment with a roof over it."

But Murphy and village Attorney Charles Noth said taking a number of short-term steps will protect the village from a lawsuit as it works on a longer-term answer.

The village has already taken some corrective steps, such as putting a berm planted with vegetation along the brook to reduce the flow of sand into it. Murphy said a tarp will cost about $7,000.

"The sand is going into the brook," said Trustee Christy Fontana. "A lot of silt can cause a lot of problems. If we're dealing with something that's the truth here, we need to address that."

Tests by both the village and the Adirondack Watershed Institute have shown higher-than-average levels of salt in the lake, and the AWI has found extremely high levels at times in the brook that runs through village property near the sand pile. The state has not done its own tests of the water; however, DEC staff have said they saw sand washing into the brook when they looked at the site, which constitutes a violation of clean water laws. Therefore, not adding salt to the pile, which had been suggested before, would not remove the violation.

"We have not been notified by DEC prior to this that we were in violation, period," said Trustee John McEneany, objecting to the fine. "Tell them we'll spend the $2,500 on planting trees, which would certainly be a better use of the money."

Trustee Jeff Branch said he spoke with DEC officials more than a year ago, and they said then that they weren't sure whether or how much the village was responsible for salt contamination in Lake Colby, given the number of other possible sources, such as the town of Harrietstown highway garage on John Munn Road, state salting on state Route 86, Adirondack Medical Center and Kinney Drugs.

Murphy said DEC officials admit that the fine was prompted by the threatened lawsuit and that he and Noth argued unsuccessfully for the fine to be waived.

"We fought adamantly," Murphy said. "We didn't want to pay, either. (But) I'm not optimistic their decision will change."

It is unknown how high a fine the DEC could impose if it finds the village in violation, so trustees ended up voting to approve the consent order with an added stipulation to continue to negotiate to get the fine removed.

"I don't want to play Russian roulette with the village's tax money," McEneany said.