Orange County to Host Public Hearing on $185 Million Sewer Plant Expansion

Orange County Legislature on March 6 voted for an upcoming public hearing on proposed major improvements to the county sewer plant with an estimated cost of $185 million.

Located in Harriman, New York, the sewer plant currently serves residents in nine municipalities in the southern part of the county, including Monroe, Blooming Grove, and Kiryas Joel.

The planned improvements, which are up for an in-person public hearing at the government center on March 24, will expand the plant capacity by half to nine million gallons of sewerage per day, prolong the life of aging infrastructure, and bring the system up to new state standards.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, Orange County Attorney Richard Golden said that the county sewer district has an obligation to make infrastructure improvements to ensure system usefulness as well as longevity and that the costs are borne by those benefiting from the plant alone.

According to a representative with Delaware Engineering at an earlier advisory committee meeting, the $185 million price tag was arrived at based on the worst-case scenario.

“Our goal here is to be conservative,” said Mary Beth Bianconi, partner of the firm hired by the county for the sewer project, pointing to out-of-control factors such as inflation.

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“We will be value engineering the project to make it less, but at this point, we need to be discussing the highest potential cost that it could be,” she said. “We’d rather be high than low, and we’d rather tell you a bigger number now and have it come in less later.”

The construction cost, assuming bids for contractors go out in 2028, is nearly $168 million, plus $17 million estimated expenses in legal, engineering, and project management services.

Following the buildout, operation and maintenance costs at the plant will rise by nearly $1.4 million in the first year to account for increased treatment chemicals and sludge removal.

For each single-family home in the sewer district, the expansion will cost an estimated $1,063 every year—that is, when no federal or state grants are included in the financing mix.

However, when factoring in potential grants and low-interest loans, the annual cost per district household incurred by the expansion will drop to just under $877, with $562 of it due to construction and another $315 to operation and maintenance expenses, according to Bianconi.

Any out-of-district user rate changes are to be determined by local municipal boards.

“We are trying to get our consultants to work rapidly because some of the largest grants have to be applied for by May 30,” Orange County Legislature Chairman Kevin Hines told The Epoch Times, “They can really reduce the cost of the project to individual households.”

Bianconi said at the committee meeting that her firm is looking at four major grant sources: Clean Water State Revolving Fund, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act, and the Water Quality Improvement Program.

“The upcoming public hearing is to hear from the public to determine whether it is in the public interest to make these improvements,” Golden said in the statement.

The sewer expansion project has gone through a lengthy state regulated environmental review process and is currently in the design phase.