Michelle Twichell

Supporters of Fredonia’s “Save Our Reservoir” movement criticized a recent county Health Department letter about a survey of the village water treatment plant, dam and reservoir.

Trustee Michelle Twichell and James Lynden, an ex-trustee who has stayed prominent in village affairs, spoke about the issue at a Board of Trustees meeting last week. The Health Department survey was conducted Feb. 11 and outlined in a Feb. 18 letter to village officials.

“While this board must continue to address deficiencies listed … I think the assessment contains information which is not consistent with the village’s own information,” Twichell said.

She said the report claims production of an average of 1.4 million gallons per day “while village records show average daily production of 800,000 gallons per day. This discrepancy is key to several of the more important deficiencies listed by the county.”

Twichell questioned a SUNY Fredonia study on the reservoir, cited in the report, which found severe siltation. “No doubt, siltation has occurred — but this study doesn’t, by itself, completely address the question of the reservoir’s total capacity,” she said. The study sampled only a limited part of the reservoir, she said.

The trustee also pushed back on Health Department assertions that Fredonia needs to tweak the pressure on its water. A major reason for doing that, from the county’s point of view, would be to improve interconnections with nearby municipalities.

“The county’s use of the term ‘should be’ must not be equated with the term ‘shall be’,” Twichell said. “Reducing the village’s water pressure will have a negative impact on the system as designed.”

She asked village officials “to consider sending out proposals for correcting some of the simplest remaining deficiencies. These might begin with maintenance of the standby electrical generator and adequate piping for sludge removal from one of the clarifiers.”

Lynden said it was unfortunate that village officials have not publicly discussed the list of issues in the county’s report. He also pushed back on assertions about the reservoir, stating that a DEC report from 2016 implied that the reservoir has enough capacity.

The county’s latest report “is very misleading” because it does not address the average depth of the reservoir, he said. However, the reservoir discussion wasn’t the only part of the report that upset Lynden.

“I could go through many more of these areas here and I probably will at some point,” he concluded. “But I’m out of time here, so thank you very much.”