SARANAC LAKE — The village has learned it cannot use a $920,000 Community Development Block Grant to replace the 120-year-old water and sewer lines beneath Payeville Lane — but maybe it can use the federal funds to replace Lake Street’s sewer main.

The CDBG program is designed to benefit low- to moderate-income households. To use it to replace water and sewer pipes, a municipality has to prove that at least 51% of that area’s residents qualify as low- to moderate-income. The village of Saranac Lake was struggling to assess that on Payeville Lane: Some people refused to share their financial information, and others were hard to track down. As it turns out, that neighborhood doesn’t qualify.

Now the village is trying to find out whether Lake Street does, and is seeking assistance from residents to determine that.

The sewer line that runs the course of the Lake Street area between Main Street and Edgewood Road “is critical infrastructure that needs to be replaced,” the village said in a press release Thursday. With the CDBG, the village says it could do the work next year, which is when it had planned to replace the Payeville pipes.

The grant is good until December 2021, which means the project has to be completed by then. In late April, village Manager John Sweeney estimated that gives the village until the fall to verify people’s incomes and do other preparations.

The village is asking Lake Street area residents to complete a confidential household income survey in order to comply with CDBG program requirements. The surveys have been mailed to each resident in the target section of Lake Street. Alternatively, residents may call village staff at 518-891-4150 to complete the survey by phone and have questions answered.

CDBG funds come from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and are administered by the state Office of Community Renewal, which is letting the village transfer the funding to a similar project in a different area of the village if those income guidelines can be met.

The Payeville water and sewer lines were laid around 1900, according to Sweeney. He said they have not broken but do not meet modern standards.

The Lake Street sewer line is 60 to 70 years old, according to village Community Development Director Jamie Konkoski.

“The expected life of that kind of infrastructure is 50 years at which time significant problems can arise,” she said.

If money allows, she said, the village will also replace Lake Street’s water lines.