Inside Rotterdam

ROTTERDAM
Sewage plant energy costs on rise
Study may find ways to save
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

    Powering Rotterdam’s sewage treatment plant these days is a costly endeavor.
    Operating the nearly 60-yearold facility off West Campbell Road cost the town more than $83,000 during 2006. And energy costs are on the rise.
    “You go over there and you see it running 24/7, 365 days a year,” Supervisor Steve Tommasone said. “That’s a lot of electricity.”
    But town officials are hoping a study partially funded by the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority will help identify ways to reduce power demand. Members of the Town Board retained Barton & Loguidice this week to conduct a $37,500 study of the aging plant so that any future upgrades will make the facility more energy efficient.
    Upgrades might not be too far off. Right now, the plant receives 1.1 million gallons of sewage per day and has a capacity to handle 1.5 million gallons.
    Connecting what are now dry sewers at Eldorado Acres to the system would bring nearly 200,000 gallons of sewage to the plant per day. The proposed 261-unit Helderberg Meadows development off Guilderland Avenue is projected to add an additional 150,000 gallons of sewage per day and the anticipated build-out of the Route 7 and Burdeck Street corridor would send a daily flow of 300,000 gallons.
    “All these new developments have to make improvements to the sewer plant one way or another,” he said. “Once we fi nd potential improvements, we’ll be able to then go out and appropriately find funding for those improvements.”
    The town’s proposal to NYSERDA details plans to increase the capacity of the plant to handle a daily flow of 2.5 million gallons. Sal Graven, a spokesman with the agency, said the study will identify ways to optimize the plant’s energy usage during any expansion.
    “In doing so, they’re trying not to tack on more [energy] load to their usage,” he said Friday.
    One possible method to relieve some of the energy burden is to install a cogeneration unit to transform methane gas from the sewage effluent into energy.
    “It might not be enough to self-sustain their electric usage,” Graven said. “But certainly any offset they can do from cogeneration would reduce their demand and increase their efficiency.”
    Public Works Director Michael Griesemer said discus- sions of the expansion are in their infancy. By involving NYSERDA early on, he said, the town is hoping to have an efficiency plan in place before proposed developments require an upgrade.
    “We’re being proactive in making this happen,” he said.
    Although the town regularly conducts maintenance, the plant hasn’t undergone a significant upgrade in more than a decade. In 1997, the town completed a $2.2 million project that increased capacity by 250,000 gallons per day.
    In 2003, a study between Duanesburg, Princetown and Rotterdam suggested a $20.39 million project to install sewers along Route 7 and the Interstate 88 interchange. The plan also called for an expansion of Rotterdam’s wastewater treatment plant and a new plant in Duanesburg.
    Three years later, a group of developers calling themselves Operation Seven West Inc. outlined a plan to extend a sewer line along Burdek Street to the Princetown border. Once the developers recouped their investment through fees, the sewer district would be turned over to the town.
    Town Attorney Robert Coan said discussions between the developers, Rotterdam and the county’s Metroplex Development Authority have heated up lately.
    “I think everybody is on board to move it forward,” he said. “It’s not anything that’s going to happen next week … but we’re back on track hopefully to get this thing moving.”