די שכנים פון קרית יואל האבן איין בלויזן ציל. זיי ווילן זען אז קרית יואל זאל אונטערגעברענגט ווערן. זיי ווילן זען אז קרית יואל זאל חרוב ווערן. אין אלע זייערע אטאקעס קעגן דעם פייפליין זאגן זיי קלאר אז אויב קרית יואל וועט נישט האבן קיין וואסער וועט זי מוזן אונטערגיין, קרית יואל וועט נישט קענען ווייטער וואקסן און עס וועלן נישט קענען צוקומען קיין נייע הייזער און נייע גאסן (הי' לא תהי').
זיי שעמען זיך נישט צו זאגן קלאר אז זייער איינציגסטע זארג איז "פן ירבה".
ווען קרית יואל פרובירט צו גרובן קוועלער, זוכנדיג נאך וואסער, שרייען זיי אז קרית יואל גנב'עט זייער וואסער. ווען קרית יואל פרובירט צו בויען א פייפליין זענען זיי ווייטער נישט צופרידן.
די פאלגנדע נייעס איז פון רעקארד נאוועמבער 3, 98', וויאזוי די שכנים פון קרית יואל פארפירן אז קרית יואל גנב'עט זייער וואסער, ווייל זיי גראבן צופיל קוועלער.
http://www.th-record.com/1998/11/03/jgkjwell.htmKJ's wells cut water supply, neighbors say
By JULIET GREER
Staff Writer
MONROE – Walter Decker washes a load of laundry, takes a shower and calls it a day.
If he uses more than a few dozen gallons of tap water in a 24-hour period, the private well on his property runs dry.
"I stand in the shower all lathered up with soap and the water stops," he said. "I have to run downstairs naked as a bird and shut off the water pump so it doesn't burn up."
Decker is one of about 20 neighbors on Seven Springs Road and in the development of Elroy who say they've experienced water shortage problems the past three years. Both neighborhoods are around the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel in the Northeast section of Monroe. Neighbors say that as the population within the fast-growing village increases, more wells are installed, and water tables in their adjacent communities drop. The village has dug five wells within the past year, according to state Department of Environmental Conservation records.
Meanwhile, neighbors just outside the village are spending thousands to keep their wells running. Decker recently spent $2,000 drilling his 200-foot well another 180 feet. His neighbor on Seven Springs Road, Debra Donleavy, spent $1,400 last year to replace a pump that burned up because her water table dropped.
Another couple, Norma and Norman Goldberger, said they dug their well deeper twice, at a cost of $5,000, in order to keep it running. The well is now 400 feet deep, Goldberger said. Goldberger was among the several residents at a Monroe Town Board meeting last night asking local elected officials for help.
Kiryas Joel has 12 running wells in its water system. Six are awaiting permits from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, DEC spokeswoman Ellen Stoutenberg said. When municipalities build wells, they are required to hire independent contractors to test and see if the wells could potentially interfere with surrounding water supplies.
Municipalities then send the information to the state Department of Health. The DOH normally passes the information to the DEC, which grants municipalities a permit to run wells after a public hearing.
The village dug one well in 1994, and five more in 1997, Stoutenberg said. In the cases of those six Kiryas Joel wells, the information was not passed along from the DOH to the DEC.
Kiryas Joel and DEC officials plan to hold a closed-door meeting in DEC offices Thursday to discuss the need for permits and to verify testing results that were done by the village's independent contractor, a Connecticut engineering firm.
If the village is found to be at fault, it will be required to correct the situation for the neighbors, Stoutenberg said. One possibility is hooking them up to the village's system.
Kiryas Joel Mayor Abraham Wieder said village leaders shut off one well about 10 weeks ago, because they got complaints from neighbors.
"If there's any information that this problem has to do with us, we'll try to resolve the problem," he said.
צו אונזערע שכנים ארום קרית יואל: מיר פארשטייען ענקער זארג, מיר ווילן נישט צונעמען ענקער וואסער. ניו יארק סיטי איז אונז גרייט צו געבן וואסער דורך א לאנגען פייפליין, וואס מיר וועלן בויען פון ניו ווינדסאר קיין קרית יואל. לאזט אונז אויפבויען די פייליין במנוחה, און איר וועט מער קיינמאל נישט האבן קיין פראבלעם מיט וואסער.
קרית יואל פרובירט צו בארואיגן די זארגן פון די שכנים איבער די וואסער קוועלער, און באצאלט פאר די שכנים געלט צו גרובן נייע קוועלער.
ליינט רעקארד יאנואר 12, 99'
KJ responds to complaints about dry wells
By JULIET GREER
Staff Writer
MONROE – In a step toward resolution, Kiryas Joel leaders vowed last night to take some responsibility for wells running dry in neighborhoods around their village, provided that scientific data being collected proves water usage in Kiryas Joel caused the problems to neighboring wells.
An engineering firm hired by the Village of Kiryas Joel is continuing to test groundwater supplies, and handed out surveys last night to people who think their wells may have run dry because of the village. State regulations allow for the village to hire its own contractor to conduct the tests.
More than 200 neighbors and public officials packed the meeting last night in Town Hall.
The meeting is a result of complaints from several homeowners in northeast Monroe and about seven in the Town of Woodbury who have recently suffered from dry wells. Dozens repeated similar stories last night about having no water problems, and then having to pay for new or deeper wells after Kiryas Joel's wells went on line.
Kiryas Joel spokesman Don Nichols said the Village of Kiryas Joel reimbursed some residents with dry wells. He said he could not recall how may people were paid and would not specify whether others would be paid. He did not say how much the village spent reimbursing those neighbors.
Nichols said some wells were turned on in 1992 because the Village of Kiryas Joel was suffering from a water emergency. A municipality does not need authority from anyone in order for its leaders to declare a water emergency and take steps to prevent water shortages, said Mike Merriman, the DEC environmental analyst who is evaluating this case.
"The DEC won't stop the initial action, but sees that the water use doesn't impact surrounding wells," he said. "Unfortunately, that was not done in this case."
But it is being done now.
According to DEC Spokeswoman Ellen Stoutenburgh, six wells were hooked into Kiryas Joel's main water supply without DEC permits.
Bill Ottaway of the Orange County Department of Health said one of those six wells, No. 15, has never been turned on. Well No. 17 is in use, and was approved by the state Health Department, with input from his office. Well No. 18 and 13B were approved by his office to be used for 30 days on an emergency basis. Well No. 13B was used intermittently after the 30-day period. Well No. 20 went on line without any notice to his office.
Representatives from the offices of U.S. Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, R-Greenville, state Sen. Bill Larkin, R-C New Windsor, Assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun, R-C Blooming Grove, the New York State Department of Health, the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation, the Orange County Department of Health, the Orange County Water Authority, Woodbury Town Board, Kiryas Joel Village Board, and Orange County Legislature were present.
http://www.th-record.com/1999/01/12/jgdecwe0.htmאויב מיינט איר אז די אנטיסעמיטן האבן אנגעפאנגען צו אטאקירן קרית יואל'ס וואסער נאר נאך די פייפליין, דעמאלטס האט איר א ביטערן טעות. ליינט דעם רעקארד פון פעברואר 12, 99' וויאזוי
די מרשעת נענסי קאלהאון, וואס שוין יארן וואס זי פרובירט אונטערצוברענגען קרית יואל, פארלאנגט אז קרית יואל זאל נישט ערלויבט ווערן צו בויען נייע קוועלער. מען רעדט נישט פון א וואסער פייפליין.
Water line extension ban could stunt KJ's growth
By JULIET GREER
Staff Writer
KIRYAS JOEL – Assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun, R-C Blooming Grove, this week called on the state Health Department to ban the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel from extending its water lines until village leaders tap into a new water source.
Such a moratorium would halt Kiryas Joel's growth.
Health Department spokeswoman Claire Popisil said her office was considering Calhoun's request.
Mayor Abraham Wieder last night said, "It has been reported day after day that there are drought conditions in Orange County. The current water shortage has just as much to do with the drought as anything else."
"We are currently working on getting other sources of water."
The village, home to about 10,000 ultra-orthodox Hasidic Satmar people, is the largest and fastest-growing village in southern Orange County. County records show the underground water source that supplies the village is not enough to support the village's growth, even for the short term.
The state and county health departments are responsible for reviewing water line extension requests. The Department of Environmental Conservation does not, if the water pipes are within the village, said Ellen Stoutenburgh, DEC spokeswoman.
Popisil could not produce records that showed what water line extensions have been checked off by her office, or have received permits. The county did not immediately grant the newspaper access to similar records.
Calhoun said the state Health Department should issue moratoriums on water line extensions, like the DEC already does for sewer lines in districts where there is no capacity. An act of the Legislature would not be necessary for the state to do this, Calhoun said.
Calhoun's move comes on the heels of complaints from residents who live on Kiryas Joel's periphery. Neighbors there have spent thousands drilling new wells on their properties. They say Kiryas Joel drained the water table when it built and used six municipal wells without state DEC approval.
Wieder said the village has since shut down two of those wells voluntarily where there was a perceived problem.
Kiryas Joel officials said they built and used the wells without permits because they were suffering from a water shortage emergency. But at the same time, one state agency allowed Kiryas Joel to use wells without permits for emergency purposes, another state agency was apparently granting the village water line extensions, Calhoun said.
"It is irresponsible for government, whose purpose is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves, to continue to allow and encourage, through authorization, additional water lines especially in areas that continue to expand despite the lack of a necessary water supply," Calhoun said. "(A moratorium) would be of benefit, especially in areas where a water emergency exists for an extended period of time."
Wieder wonders why just single out Kiryas Joel.
"There are water problems in other communities such as Goshen and Washingtonville," he said. "Would this apply to them as well?"
onnery and Fornario also say NYC engineers questioned the need for an 18-inch pipe and that the city may need the water for itself
By David Gordon
GOSHEN-Kiryas Joel's plan to draw water from New York City's Catskill Aqueduct depends on two pipelines, Orange County legislator Roxanne Donnery of Highland Falls said last week.
One pipeline is physical - a 13-mile stretch of pipe from the aqueduct tap in New Windsor to the village.
The second pipeline is political, she added, a connection between the residents of the towns surrounding the Hassidic village and politicians in New York City and New York State.
Donnery, legislator Frank Fornario of Chester and several local officials said at a press conference last week that "the aqueduct tap is not a done deal." They met with officials of New York City's Department of Environmental Protection on Nov. 8 to discuss the village's plan to draw water from the aqueduct.
Fornario described the trip to New York City as "a fact-finding mission." Several Orange County officials had given the impression that the tap and pipeline were fully approved by the city, and "we wanted to know if that was the case. I would not have supported spending taxpayers' money on a lawsuit if it were a done deal."
The invitation from New York City came as a result of questions Fornario, other Orange County legislators and citizens of Monroe and Woodbury had asked the city, Fornario said. The city's Department of Environmental Protection has a new acting commissioner, David B. Tweedy, and they met with him and several of the city's attorneys and engineers.
Kiryas Joel's Clerk/Administrator, Gedalye Szegedin, says the announcement that the pipeline is not a done deal is old news. The process involves a good deal of planning and engineering. New York won't sign off on the tap until final plans have been presented and approved. Orange County's lawsuit has stalled that process, he said.
Before the New York City Department of Environmental Protection gives final approval, "SEQRA (the study under the State Environmental Quality Review Act) must be complete," he said. "Orange County has initiated a lawsuit (challenging the SEQRA study), and that lawsuit must be settled before we can prepare a final design."
However, the village's plan could hinge on whether New York has enough water to supply new users, a spokesman for the city's Department of Environmental Protection said this past Monday.
Under a 1905 law, there are only two criteria for whether the city must allow a municipality to hook up to the city's aqueducts, said spokesman Ian Michaels. First, the applicant must be a municipality, that is, not a private corporation, homeowners association or other non-municipal user. Second, it must be in one of the eight counties that make up the city's watershed.
Kiryas Joel clearly meets both criteria.
However, Michaels said, city engineers have raised questions about details in the Hassidic village's request. For instance, the 18-inch pipeline the village has proposed is larger than necessary to meet the stated water requirements. The village has not submitted engineering specifications to answer this question.
"Their application is for 2 million gallons per day, and they are predicting an annual growth rate of 6 percent per year," he said. "This amount should not require an 18-inch pipe."
The only other requirement is that New York City have sufficient water to serve the 9 million people currently using the system plus the new applicant. This is still under study, Michaels said, because the city will have to shut down the Delaware Aqueduct at some point within the next 10 years for major repairs. During the year that the Delaware Aqueduct is closed, the city is looking at a shortfall of some 400,000 gallons per day.
"We have a lot of options for possible alternate sources," Michael said, "such as water from New Jersey or Long Island. There's also an aquifer under Brooklyn and Queens."
The current lawsuit Orange County has taken against the village's plans will not affect New York's decision on whether to grant Kiryas Joel's application for city water. That affects the pipeline from the proposed tap to the village. The county is suing to overturn an environmental study the village submitted on the pipeline, primarily because the extra water that would be generated would place too great a burden on the county's wastewater treatment plant in Harriman.
The environmental study does not sufficiently address this concern, according to the county's lawsuit.
"This pipeline, 13 miles, is longer than any municipality has proposed," Michaels said, "but that is not our concern. We are required to consider only whether the applicant is a municipality and whether it is within the 8-county area. The only thing that's up to us is whether we have sufficient water to give a dependable supply." At the Nov. 8 meeting, city DEP attorneys and officials told the legislators, Woodbury Supervisor Sheila Conroy, Blooming Grove Supervisor Charles Bohan and Washingtonville Mayor Leonard Curcio that the water tap "was not a done deal," Donnery said. "We had been told throughout this process that it was a done deal, but they do not have final permission to tap the aqueduct."
Donnery said she and other officials have been pressing for a meeting with the DEP for months. She is hoping citizen action will keep the momentum going now that the meeting has taken place.
"Citizens need to be aware of the need to send letters to the governor, to Joe Bruno, to Sheldon Silver, to Michael Bloomberg," she said. "Only citizen action will be able to stop this. I believe in the power of citizens; that's what speaks to politicians. That's where I come from."
Donnery's first realization of the power of citizen action occurred during her tenure on the Highland Falls School Board, she said. The school district was faced with a tremendous shortfall in funding because the federal government was not meeting its obligation to pay for the land West Point takes off the tax rolls. Pressure from residents, largely organized by Donnery, forced the feds to pass special legislation reimbursing the school district for the loss. Donnery has also been active in organizing parents around the regulations for Persons in Need of Supervision (PINS), gaining changes in that program for young people in trouble.
Bohan, the Blooming Grove supervisor, said he left the meeting with the impression that New York City has concerns about the length of the pipeline, the environmental review process and the ability of Kiryas Joel to deal with possible shutdowns of the aqueduct in the future.
"They are saying that they have their current wells as a backup, but if their population continues to grow, these wells won't be sufficient," Bohan said. "There's a good possibility that in the future they will be using the wells in addition to the pipeline as their population grows."
Bohan said he also has the impression that "a phone call from Albany could put this on the fast track," and, like Donnery, he is asking citizens of surrounding towns to contact their representatives and the governor and voice their objections.
Szegedin said the village wells are currently supplying Kiryas Joel's needs, and they would be available if New York City had to shut down one of its aqueducts for repairs. In addition, he pointed out, the village would not draw from these wells while New York is supplying water. "We will preserve the aqueduct by removing Kiryas Joel. That will be one less straw sucking water from that cup, and it should help Monroe and Woodbury."
Szegedin also noted that the law does not set a limit on the number of municipalities that can tap the New York aqueducts. "It doesn't say 75 municipalities can hook up, but not Kiryas Joel."