Here is an update on the Village construction and utility upgrades.
As many of you have noticed, there have been many large holes dug on multiple streets. These holes are to provide access to the water lines for new shut off valves to be put in. Done are more than half of the 20+ needed to help isolate sections of the water lines without interrupting the whole Village/Town system. When completed, the project will enable the replacement of the 14 non-working fire hydrants. The Cayuga County Water and Sewer Authority are doing the work and are on, or ahead of, schedule. Until then some rough roads and disruption of traffic will continue.
On the culvert project, CCI (the contractor) and NYS DOT engineers have moved into a Cayuga Street office. As per my last blog, the contractors work will begin in earnest in a couple of weeks with the major traffic challenges (one-way Cayuga Street traffic and some re-routing) from July to the end of September. Prior to that NYSEG will be adding three new 50-foot poles and raising all of the wires. And then they will remove the four existing poles in and nearest to the construction demolition area. This has been a wet spring for the whole country and here, but the new flood remediation culvert should alleviate most if not all of the damages our businesses and residents have endured.
Lastly, the final piece of the culvert replacement project is the removal of the keystone culvert and bridge on Foundry Street. This will result in the permanent closure of the pass-through street (Foundry) and the change of Factory Street from one way to two way without another outlet.
The old stone culvert removal is needed as the new uptown culvert can move much larger volumes of water and debris downstream (possibly even a tree). And underneath and passing through the existing stone culvert is an exposed sewer pipe. To protect the pipe and prevent a possible spill directly into the lake, the DOT has engineered a design that encapsulates the pipe. This could not be done with the 6-foot existing culvert in place.
With the new possible water flow, the Village is working with DEC to implement a plan that would filter much of the algae causing nutrients out of the high flow waters before they reach the lake.
Our Village Board is working with DEC, DOT and other state agencies to proactively prevent major flooding problems and in protecting Cayuga Lake from nutrient loaded upstream runoff. We live on the lake and the quality of the water should be of upmost importance to us all.
Regards,
Mayor Bud Shattuck