This time, top brass with the state Department of Health appeared before state senators and assembly members. Per the hearing rules, Stec only had three minutes. After quickly addressing the North Star Health Alliance’s recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and saying that the North Country “can’t afford to lose any more facilities,” he pivoted to Tupper Lake.

Stec had raised the issue with the state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Amanda Lefton at the DEC’s Jan. 28 budget hearing. Now he addressed it with DOH Commissioner James McDonald, and while there’s potential water infrastructure funding through that agency, Stec said this was a problem that largely falls under the DOH’s purview.

He told McDonald that, long story short, the village needs to spend between $20 and $25 million to deliver clean and safe drinking water. This includes the roughly $7 million existing debt from the current wells, and at least $12.5 million in additional well capacity and better filtration systems to remove iron and manganese.

“The governor put $250 million in the budget for water resources,” Stec said. “Obviously, $20 million just in one facility that’s going to serve 2,000 customers. There’s not enough money.”

Iron-laden Tupper Lake municipal water, with the sediment collecting at the bottom after sitting for some time. (Provided photo)

And it’s not even clear, Stec said, that any of that would go to Tupper Lake’s issue.

“I’m concerned, though, that Tupper Lake has been told several times recently that there’s no more money for them because this is an old issue that they’ve been working on,” he said.

Village Mayor Mary Fontana said, including as recently as at a joint village and town board meeting on Tuesday, that she had been told by state officials that Tupper Lake had exhausted its grant funding for water improvements. Stec pleaded with the health commissioner to reconsider this.

“Please have your people take another look,” he said. “Anything we can do to help that village is appreciated.”

Unless more state aid is doled out, these upgrades would impose a catastrophic debt on its already-strained and dwindling tax base. Fontana warned that the current financial projections would leave rate payers with $200 or more per month water bills.

Tupper Lake’s water dilemma is a combination of inadequate filtration of iron-laden groundwater from the Pitchfork Pond wells, as well as potentially carcinogenic water from Little Simon Pond.

The potentially cancer-causing surface water stems from naturally occurring organic matter that, while not harmful in and of itself, reacts with chlorine used to treat the water to produce the potentially carcinogenic byproducts.

This started in the early 2000s, not as a result of an infrastructure change nor the water composition. Rather, updated and more stringent water quality standards from the Environmental Protection Agency rendered what had previously been considered safe drinking water as now potentially carcinogenic, and the village has operated under a consent decree since.

Tupper Lake uses a blend of the two sources, as there is not enough groundwater capacity at the moment to supply the entire customer base. Different parts of the community receive different blends, depending on their proximity to each source.

Fontana said at Tuesday’s meeting that she wasn’t necessarily opposed to the EPA’s move, saying these types of changes are often driven by newer and better science, but that it was frustrating that those were not paired with financial assistance to help small communities, like Tupper Lake, make those upgrades without imposing such a steep burden.

An article on Tupper Lake’s water crisis being raised at the DEC hearing is available at tinyurl.com/yws7xxm3.