OGDENSBURG, New York (WWNY) – Ogdensburg has the chance to accept a $2 million grant and nearly $700,000 in interest-free financing to start mapping out where lead is a problem in its drinking water.
The Department of Public Works in Ogdensburg is creating an inventory of the areas where lead is present in its water piping.
“We want to identify where there’s lead within our water distribution system. We are required to produce an inventory by October 2024,” said Interim City Manager Andrea Smith.
The deadline is a requirement from New York state as it looks to advance its water infrastructure systems. The Environmental Facilities Corporation is hoping to help the Maple City in its mapping. The EFC is offering $2 million to Ogdensburg in grant funding.
“We estimate that the project will be about $2.6 million. That’s based on an engineer’s perspective of the size of the city, the geography, as well as the number of the miles of line or linear feet of line, and the number of laterals that we have,” said Smith.
An additional $688,330 will also be provided for the project from interest-free loans.
“Our Department of Public Works does have quite a bit of information on where we have lead. We have done some removal of lead in our distribution system, but it is city-wide. The scale of it is city-wide,” said Smith.
“We want to get through the first step of the first project to identify them. Then we will have to make a game plan to see what the state or federal government’s going to require to move on. Hopefully, they’ll be putting out more grant funding to help municipalities take care of this issue,” said DPW Director Shane Brown.
The city council needs to vote on whether or not to accept the grant.
Smith says a decision needs to be made by July 21. She hopes council will hold a special meeting in order to move forward one way or another with the grant award.
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