I drive past the sewage treatment plant several times a day, and for the last three months or so, there is always a terrible sewage stench coming from that place, at times very overpowering and nauseating.

With all of the new economic development planned especially for that section of town, are there any plans to upgrade the sewage treatment facility, or at least control the smell?

I don't know, Bubba, but I drove past it the other day and agree, it smells.  Good thing there's not a major multiple family residential housing project nearby...oh, wait, there is...but their contract states that they know it's there and they're most likely going to have to deal with it.

...and Welcome to the board, Bubba.  We look forward to hearing more from you.

I think the sewage plant needs to be updated and enlarged and that will help to reduce the odors. It's being overworked with the volume of sewage that the plant is trying to handle.

My understanding is that it will be updated...as per the 'private developers' when sewers come from the McLanes warehouse thing.....

Quoted from senders

My understanding is that it will be updated...as per the 'private developers' when sewers come from the McLanes warehouse thing.....

The only thing I read was about the developers updating the pumping station at Rotterdam Square Mall.

I've lived in Bellevue for four years and the past two months the smell has been getting worse by the day.

I like to hear some comments by some town officials about this.  I hope they don't need to wait until it becomes a public controversy.  

Oh, and thanks for the welcome.

It does stink for sure! I thought the same as senders. I thought that when the sewers were put in on Burdeck and Rt 7,, the sewage plant would be enlarged as well. I certainly hope so. PU!

I'm a public official.....oops wrong town.  We have two sewage treatment plants.  State of the art, and we are quite proud of them.  One is in the middle of the woods, on the snowmobile trail.  No stench.  The other is on property donated by Indian Lookout Countryclub, no stench.  I'm sure Steve Tommasone is working on your odor issue.  Believe me when I tell you it TAKES FOREVER.  It has been a long four years to complete our newest sewer district, thats just the installation, the planning stage was another four years or so.  So many regulations by every agency you can imagine and then some.

It really is along and expensive process. But I think that the administration in Rotterdam know that it  has to be made larger and maybe they are trying to figure out what way would be the cheapest on the folks.

More than likely the cost is a concern, but also the effectiveness, efficiency and room for expansion.

Quoted from Rene

More than likely the cost is a concern, but also the effectiveness, efficiency and room for expansion.

True, we as taxpayers also have to remember the old addage... "You get what you pay for."  Ask for something cheap and it'll be exactly that, cheap.  You want it effective, you actually have to pay for it.

I would also have to believe that they already know what is needed, but are looking at the cost as well.

Why is it that this town always has to wait until someone else foots the bill b4 anything gets fixed. This has been mentioned to the town b4 that they should collect a small fee from everyone who uses sewers and storm sewers to be put into a fund for only sewer maintenance so when a problem arises the money will be there to fix it. Thus far nothing has been done because the town officials are scared to death to raise the taxes one penny more than the absolutely have to. As BK said you get what you pay for and I feel it's time to start being proactive and to start maintaining and improving what we have b4 problems arise.

I agree with you shadow, but unfortunately that is NOT the general concensus of the towns people. Raising, lowering or keeping taxes the same is the vote getter. Even though raising taxes may be in the town's best interest, the majority of this town does not want to pay anymore taxes than they already do. And some of them, I can't blame. Such as Biaggio. It's a damned if you do and a damned if you don't.

Then, I think the best thing is to find where we can cut back to re-route funds to take care of the issue.

Rotterdam is getting too big to just keep operating the same way that it has been for the last 50 years by just putting band aids on all their problems and then hope that the problems will fix themselves. It's high time that the residents of this town realize that the reason we have sewer, drainage, and storm water problems is because no-one wanted to spend any money in the form of higher taxes to fix these problems. We are now paying for being cheap with ground water and storm water that is contaminated with ecoli and coliform bacteria due to sewage mixing with the water during periods of heavy rain. These problems won't fix themselves and they need action by our town officials or the problem will just get worse. We need sewers, new businesses, a cap on excessive school taxes, a cut in wasteful spending, and a cap on excessive salaries and benefits for our public employees[police] in order to afford the things this town really needs.