Working together: town, village fixing waterline

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By Dan King

For the past week and a half the town and village of Whitehall have been working together to put in a new water line on Buckley Road, heading out to the school campus.

The village secured a $100,000 grant last year to pay for the materials needed for the project. At a recent meeting, Mayor Ken Bartholomew reported that the village actually had some money left over from that grant and would consider doing a few more yards of the waterline than originally planned.

The waterline is a village-owned waterline, but falls within the town of Whitehall.

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Village and town workers are now working on the part of the waterline in front of the Whitehall Central School District.

The grant was used to purchase HDPE pipe, a much more durable, flexible pipe, to replace the particularly problematic portions of the waterline running along the side of Buckley Road.

Bartholomew described the current pipe as “junk” and said the new pipe will prevent the water breaks that occurred multiple times last winter, which caused school cancellations multiple times.

Grant funds, which were secured through Sen. Betty Little, can only be used on parts and can only be used on the Buckley Road project, which is why Bartholomew said the village would consider extending how much of the waterline it will replace.

Last Monday the village and town crews started digging at the intersection of Buckley Road and Rte. 4, and by this Monday had progressed to the area of the road in front of the high school.

While the work goes on, parts of Buckley Road will be limited to a single lane, but Bartholomew said the job should be done before school starts and will not mess up the morning routine for parents and bus drivers.

At a recent meeting, Bartholomew said the village would consider using the same type of pipes on the South Bay Bridge waterline, which has had some leaking problems of late.

He said the HDPE pipe would be more durable to the high amount of traffic traveling that bridge, because it is a more flexible material than the current metal pipe.

The village of Whitehall water plant is near Pine Lake in the town of Dresden, which is why the village has a waterline that comes across the South Bay Bridge.