Resolutions mark major projects

AMENIA — Paperwork was on the agenda for last week’s May 13 Town Board meeting, and while the reading of resolutions can be fairly anticlimatic, last week represented concrete steps taken by the town in several major undertakings.

Nelson Hill bridge repair

First the board approved a bond anticipation note for a maximum estimated cost of $270,000 for the Nelson Hill Road bridge project in Wassaic. The town has been awarded a $150,000 Community Development Block Grant by the county, but as town Supervisor Wayne Euvrard said, the project will need additional funding. A complete replacement of the bridge is expected, and the project will widen the bridge by 4 feet.

Town Clerk Maureen Bonds will advertise for bids, and Euvrard said he expects the project to be awarded to the best bidder at the board’s June 17 meeting.

Amenia Farmers Market

Although the town doesn’t own the building yet, the board passed a resolution allowing the Amenia Farmers Market to operate in the parking lot of the Amenia Elementary School building, located on Route 22 just north of the main intersection in town. The building is currently owned by the Webutuck School District, which will allow the farmers market to operate until the town officially takes over the property for use as the new Town Hall.

The farmers market will make its debut tomorrow, May 21, from 2 to 6 p.m., and will be open during the same time every Friday for the rest of the summer, offering a selection of agricultural products from local farmers.

Old Amenia landfill

Finally, it’s going to cost the town quite a bit of money to clean up the former Amenia landfill,  located south of the Amenia hamlet on Route 22, which was closed in the late 1990s because of dangerous waste. The board passed a resolution approving bond anticipation notes totaling roughly $12.36 million. While 75 percent of those costs will be reimbursed by the state, Euvrard said, the town will still have to pay approximately $3 million for remediation costs to the landfill.

Euvrard said that cleanup was originally estimated at about $5 million total, before more testing revealed additional contamination. The supervisor said during a phone interview earlier this week that 12 chemical companies have contributed approximately $1 million toward the work so far as responsible parties. That money has already been spent to keep the cost to the town close to zero so far, Euvrard added, and discussions are continuing as to whether the chemical companies should pay more.

The $12.36 million figure is intentionally higher than the expected cost, Euvrard added, to ensure that the bond anticipation notes will cover the entire cost of the project.

The engineering firm CT Male Associates has been hired to handle the remediation process, and Euvrard said that once the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has approved the proposal, work can begin. He estimated that it would take about a year to complete.

“After it’s all capped and closed, there are plans to make a park out of it,� Euvrard said. “I’ve lived here all my life, but never got around to walking that property [until the contamination issues]. It’s absolutely gorgeous there.�