June 11, 2009

Village gets $1.3 million

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Paterson announces Federal money for village project

Gov. David Paterson announced Thursday $130 million in federal stimulus money will go out to communities across the state and Granville is one of them.

Mayor Jay Niles said the cost of the wastewater treatment plant upgrade project would be covered by money announced as part of the second round of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the federal stimulus program.

More than $300 million has been given out across the state since April, but Granville did not receive any funds during the first round of grant funding.

The village was one of 22 New York state communities receiving federal funding for wastewater treatment projects and the only location in Washington County to get federal stimulus money as part of the June 4 announcement.

“Village of Granville, Washington County, will receive $1.3 million to support the design and construction of improvements to the village’s treatment plant, which was built in 1970 and no longer is able to consistently achieve discharge standards. This work will replace key treatment components which will allow the village to more consistently and efficiently achieve discharge requirements, thereby improving water quality,” the announcement posted by the Environmental Facilities Corp. (EFC) said.

“That’s really incredible news; in fact, that means we’ll only have to borrow $260 ($260,000) at 0 percent,” Mayor Jay Niles said Friday.

The village will receive a total of $1.3 million in stimulus money, along with $1.04 million in what is called “principal forgiveness” — the same, Village Clerk Rick Roberts said, as a grant. The remainder of the money, $260,000 will be a “hardship loan” financed at 0 percent interest over 30 years.

Roberts said that would mean loan payments for the village of approximately $8,670 versus annual payments of as much as $70,260 over the same 30-year duration if the village had to finance the entire $1.3 million project.

“It was a good day, you don’t get those kind of announcements that often,” Roberts said. “It’s gratifying when you get as much of the project funded as we did; that should allow us to keep sewer rates in a lot better check.”

Niles credited the efforts of wastewater superintendent Dan Williams and the engineers from Lamont, including Milan Jackson and the EFC in having the project “shovel ready” when it came time to submit packages for consideration. Niles said the work of Lamont had been critical getting document in on time.

“It was a real team effort,” Niles said, “This project had to be shovel ready and we were thanks to them.”

“It wasn’t easy; it was a lot of hard work talking to people and being patient, but I think it paid off,” Niles said.

“We’re still trying to get every funding opportunity we can do,” Niles said.