Troy

Troy must pay a fine and clean up its drinking water plant to reduce contamination that is escaping into the Hudson River, under an agreement reached last week with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The issue at the plant stems from naturally occurring iron and manganese that is removed from water from the Tomhannock Reservoir and collected as sludge in two settling ponds, said Chris Wheland, city superintendent of public utilities.

Sludge levels in the ponds are high enough that some contaminants are draining into a nearby creek, which in turn drains into the Hudson.

Under the agreement, the city must dredge out the two ponds by September, and pay a $9,500 fine. DEC also agreed to forgive a fine of $41,445 if the work is done on schedule.

The DEC agreement, signed by Mayor Patrick Madden, said iron and manganese discharges from the plant violated state standards nearly four dozen times between early 2015 and August of 2018. There were also 18 violations for chlorine and solids escaping from the settling ponds, according to the agreement.

Wheland said the city is studying how to go about dredging the ponds, and that there is no budget for the work yet. The ponds are each about 12 feet deep, by 60 feet long and 40 feet wide.

The city also faced DEC actions because of improper discharges from its water treatment plant in 2004, 2009 and 2013.

The settling ponds date to the 1980s, and Wheland said the city attempts to remove sludge every other year. He said the city also faces a challenge of what to do with recovered sludge, which is not accepted at landfills, he said.

Currently, the state allows Troy to store the sludge at the water treatment plant, but eventually, there will be no more room for that to continue, he said.