TOWN OF NEW BREMEN, New York (WWNY) – A project that should eliminate Lowville’s water woes is now underway.
Wednesday, GYMO Engineering and Lowville officials broke ground on the construction of two new groundwater wells. The $5.7 million project will also upgrade the village’s existing water treatment plant.
“This project show’s the village’s commitment to maintaining and improving their infrastructure,” said GYMO managing engineer, Matt Cervini.
Once the wells are complete, Lowville will have access to an additional 500,000 gallons per day. According to GYMO, this should prevent future water restrictions like the ones Lowville residents faced in the summer and fall of 2021.
More water may even allow Kraft-Heinz to expand their business in the area.
“The village source now is over 2 million gallons per day. It should certainly reduce those emergency situations,” Cervini said.
The project was made possible with a state grant and low interest loan that Assemblyman Ken Blankenbush (R – 117th Assembly District) said has been in the works for quite some time.
“This is just an end result of us going after the funding. The state has come through and this will be a great economic benefit for the village,” he said.
Lowville officials have been laying the groundwork for this particular project since 2019, but like a lot of things, their plans had to be put on hold in 2020.
“COVID slowed things down a little bit. I hate blaming things on that but I guess everybody does. We finally are back on track and we hope to have this project completed shortly,” said Lowville mayor Joseph Beagle.
How shortly? Well, GYMO is predicting the wells will be operational by spring 2023, as long as they don’t run into serious supply chain issues.
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