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DEC makes suggestions for St. Armand sewage plant

Stan Ingeson poses at the town of St. Armand’s wastewater treatment plant, where he works as supervisor. (Photo provided — Bill Chaisson) (Provided photo — Bill Chaisson) (Correction: Ingeson's last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this caption.)

BLOOMINGDALE — Early last month, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation conducted an inspection of the town of St. Armand’s sewer department. They told its supervisor, Stan Ingeson, that he was doing a good job, but they had some suggestions for improvements.

Five of the suggestions had to do with the missing operations and maintenance manual, according to town Supervisor Dean Montroy, who filled in the town council at its meeting Tuesday. AES, the architecture, engineering and land surveying firm that built the wastewater treatment plant, has been slow to provide the town with the manual, but Montroy recently discovered in the town hall a 40-volume set of written material from AES.

“All the information we need is in there, but it’s about this big,” he said, holding his hands about 3 feet apart, “and all we really need to know for our system can be condensed into something like this.” He held his hands about 3 inches apart. AES has promised to speed up the condensation process, which has been stalled by the maternity leave of its employee in charge of the task.

The most serious problem at the wastewater plant is that, at present, Ingeson is the sole attendant, and the DEC mandates weekend supervision of daily automated monitoring routines. Montroy told the council that the state regulators would begin levying a fine of $37,500 per day if the town does not create a seven-day staffing plan by the end of the month.

St. Armand has reached out to the village of Saranac Lake, which has five employees at its plant who rotate through the weekend duties there. Some of them have expressed willingness to help staff the St. Armand plant, but Ingeson also plans to contact the village of Lake Placid. The town’s wastewater plant, with a capacity of 60,000 gallons per day, is much smaller than those of the two villages, which can handle between 1 and 2 million gallons per day, according to Montroy.

The DEC inspectors also commented on the required annual recalibration of the plant’s flow meters, which monitor the volume of discharge into Sumner Brook.

“They want the corporate people to do the inspection,” said Ingeson. “They think it is more complex than it really is.” He implied that he would like to save the town money by keeping as much of the maintenance in-house as possible.

The DEC was testing a new inspection plan; St. Armand was the first place in the state to be put through the new protocol.

“They told us that these weren’t violations,” Montroy said, “but just things that they found to be unsatisfactory.”

Ingeson also told the council that he has made progress in a switch to a new polymer-coagulant mix for the treatment process. The previous product was expensive, difficult to get and had to be purchased in large quantities. He had been testing a new product that was locally available, less expensive and could be purchased in smaller amounts. It was more caustic than the other mix, but it was working well. He told the council he would make a final determination based on results that came back from a laboratory after the regular monthly testing.

Finally, Montroy told the council that he had heard back from the town’s attorney, Matthew Norfolk, about fixing the mistakes in past sewage and water billing. Irregularities in metering and adjustments over the last eight years had led to both under- and overpayments. Norfolk told the supervisor that if any effort is made to balance the accounts, an auditor would have to be hired. Montroy and the council members doubted that the town and its taxpayers would come out ahead financially in that case.

“If we try to fix it,” said council member Don Amell, “we’d never be done. We’ll never find the people who underpaid; that’s for sure.”

“The cost to the taxpayers to rectify any inequities would exceed the benefit,” Montroy said.

The supervisor and council members scheduled a special workshop meeting for 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 28 to discuss new sewer and water billing policies. The public is invited.

(Correction: Stan Ingeson’s last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this article.)

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