According to Altamont’s latest drinking-water quality report, from 2021,  average demand in the village is about 189,000 gallons per day.  Altamont Superintendent of Public Works Jeff Moller said on June 9 that demand is now “pushing” 260,000 gallons per day. 

In May 2021, the New Scotland Town Board voted to increase the price customers in the Font Grove and Clarksville districts paid for water. On May 11, those customers along with ones from the Northeast Water District received what appears to be some short-term relief as board members declined to increase their rates. 

Mary Beth Bianconi with Delaware Engineering, which is handling the application, explained that the town has three wells. One is used in the summertime when water use peaks in town; the other two wells are unused because they have high levels of iron and manganese.

The New York State Department of Health has set maximum levels for three emerging drinking-water contaminants: perfluorooctanoic acid, perfluorooctane sulfonate, and 1,4-dioxane.

Customers in New Scotland’s Northeast Water District could have clearer water and fire protection if the town obtains grants that would lower the cost to connect to a new water source. 

The Rotterdam interconnect is one of the measures the town has taken that Guilderland’s superintendent of water, Timothy McIntyre, hopes will help improve water quality. 

Customers in New Scotland’s Northeast Water District will eventually have to pay for the water they are receiving from Voorheesville. But it has yet to be determined how that will happen. 

Depending on the source, some New Scotland water customers can pay as much as $26 per 1,000 gallons of water while others pay as little as $4.50. Recently, because their own service had to be shut down, the 127 customers in the Northeast Water District have been paying close to double what they normally pay for water.

The Altamont Reservoir may shortly have a new purpose if a proposed solar farm for the village-owned land in Knox gets the green light from the Altamont Board of Trustees. The timing couldn’t be better, as this week the 120-year-old dam was identified as among the worst in the country. 

After an Associated Press report called attention to the safety rating of dams across the country, the Albany Water Board commissioner assured that the Basic Creek Reservoir Dam is inspected “weekly, monthly, yearly.”