NEW SCOTLAND — Homeowners along Krumkill and Font Grove roads filed into Town Hall last Tuesday asking what the planning board was going to do to safeguard their limited water supply. A developer is going to start drilling, looking for locations for six wells for six $500,000 to $700,000 homes at the intersection of the two roads.
Planning board Chairman Robert Stapf said, "We can’t prevent someone from drilling on their own property." The applicant has the right to put a well on his lot as well, Stapf said.

The county’s health department requires that standards are met for sanitary waste disposal and water before a building permit can be issued, Stapf said.

If land is to be divided into five or more lots, and those lots are less then 5 acres, then the wells must be approved by the health department, said Steve Lukowski of Albany County’s health department.

In this case, the proposal is to split 13.9 acres into six lots ranging in size from two to three acres.
The town will not issue a developer a building permit until it receives notice from the health department, Stapf said. This development is contingent upon water being found, and it’s a big "if," Stapf said.

Each house requires its own well on its own lot.

Planning board member Douglas LaGrange pointed out that if not enough water can be found, then the proposed housing layout would have to change.

Lyon Greenberg of Krumkill Road said, when he obtained water 38 years ago, he dug three wells, one each at 350 feet, 450 feet, and 150 feet; then, at the other end of his farm he dug five more wells before finding enough water for just one well sufficient for his house. Finding enough water for six wells, while possible, is not likely, he said.

The health department requires a well for a single-family dwelling to supply two to five gallons of water per minute.

The last well to be drilled in this area was for adjacent property owner Stephanie Martin. Her well is 300 feet deep and produces three gallons a minute, she said.
"In New York State, there is no right-to-water law," said Lukowski

A homeowner of 38 years has no more right to the underground water supply than a new neighbor exploring for water, he said.

The county health department can’t require a developer to test a neighbor’s well to see how the new well impacts another’s well, Lukowski said; the county does not have the authority to require an adjacent property owner to open up his land and well to be tested.
"We can’t require something when it needs the permission of someone else," Lukowski said.

Other neighbors also spoke of water scarcity. Lori Kenny, whose property is on the southern side of the 13.9 acres, said that there are five wells on her property but only one that pumps.

Jim Finnigan, who has lived at 2 addresses near each other on Hilton Road said that he drilled 4 wells, 300 feet deep, to find water for his residence.

Finnigan asked if all six of the new wells will be pumped simultaneously to see the effect on each other.

If all six nearby wells can sustain their own yield, that’s a good test to determine if there is an adequate water source, Lukowski said. If one of the six wells doesn’t affect any of the other five, he added, it’s very likely that the other neighboring wells aren’t affected either.

Stapf stated that one of the reasons this land has not yet been developed is because of the lack of water.

Failed wells

Jim McMann, who lives on Font Grove Road, said the property directly next to him, which is just 500 feet way from the proposed half-million-dollar homes, tried to subdivide previously but, after drilling six wells in search of water, the developers did not find enough adequate water and never proceeded with the construction.

Now, McMann said, next to his lot there are six wells with stagnant water which is literally onky 500 feet away from the site of the million-dollar homes where they are planning to drill six to 10 more wells, he said.

He is concerned about the ground disturbance that is created by drilling, and all the contaminants in stagnant water left in the shafts of the abandoned wells.

Stapf said, while he won’t comment on the wells on a different parcel that aren’t sealed, one thing the planning board can do for this project is require that the applicant seal off the unused wells on the property.
McMann also said that, after the neighboring lot had been drilled, McMann’s well became contaminated with methane and sediments; he spent over $6,000 to get usable water again. If this happens again, McMann asked, what right does an existing homeowner have"
"What happens in the ground is beyond me," Stapf said. All the town can do is make sure the applicant uses proven methods to drill and uses a licensed certified well driller as required by law.

The health department doesn’t search the county looking for abandoned wells, Lukowski said; while they hope abandoned wells have caps on them, health department enforcement picks up when that property comes before them for some sort of approval, which is needed in this case for a subdivision and building permit.

This New Scotland development will not receive health-department approval if the unworkable wells are not capped, Lukowski said.

The risk is that a contaminant can be dropped into an un-sealed well, Lukowski said. But, as long as an abandoned well is capped then that eliminates the potential of something getting in, and posing a risk to the water supply.

Other concerns
Martin, whose property touches the proposed construction site, said that, besides the concern of the new houses sucking up the water table, she is concerned about the drilling disturbing the ground. "I don’t have sulfur now. Is that something that may show up later"" she asked.

The residents called on the planning board to require an independent contractor, to verify the wells’ percolation, and to test the effect on neighboring wells.

Stapf said that he will discuss with legal counsel and the town’s engineering firm what the planning board can do.

Well-drillers are licensed by the state and if they are in flagrant violation, they will lose their license, Stapf said.
Bossolini said, "County health is very rigorous in their evaluation and monitoring of the contamination of wells."

The applicant has the right to drill 20 wells if it wants in search for water, but drilling wells is very expensive, Stapf said.

Bossolini said his client hopes to only have to drill one well for each house.

At some point, Stapf said, a developer has to factor in the cost of drilling well after well and the expected profit made from the selling of the homes.

He said that in this situation, the applicant has agreed to pay for and participate with the town on doing some well monitoring, which they are not required to do at all.

Next month the board and the applicant will discuss guidelines for well monitoring, sulfur and contamination, and the effects of pounding versus drilling a well, said Stapf.
There is a desire to "stay away from hydrofracturing — that has been a problem in the past in this area," Stapf said.
"We’ll discuss this at the next meeting, not saying requirements, but would like to discuss them," he stated very clearly.

Francis Bossolini, the developer’s engineer, said that his clients want to get a rigger out there and start drilling soon and asked if Stapf’s request to discuss these issues next month effect his clients ability to start drilling.

Stapf responded that the landowner can do what he wants, and has the right to drill.

The only thing he knows that the board can stipulate is that the unused holes be plugged.

Stapf told The Enterprise after the meeting that he was going to leave the well-monitoring up to the town’s engineering firm, who are experts.

How it’s done

Lukowski said that there are two ways to make a well — drilling and pounding.

A rotating drill has a bit that goes down and around into the ground; the churned soil could seal off water by sealing up fractures and fissures.

Pounders literally pound a hole in the ground, with the possibility of sealing water-bearing aquifers.

Hydrofraction doesn’t have anything to do with construction of the well hole but is a method used when the well is already drilled, Lukowski said. A driller pumps water at high pressure into the well to push the water through and to force the water out in order to open up new fractures and fissures or to connect to nearby fractures or fissures to increase the water flow into that well.

Lukowski said he hasn’t seen hydrofracturing cause any kind of contamination. The only way hydrofracturing could contaminate the underground water source is if the water the driller is pumping into the well is contaminated water that’s being pushed through the underground waterways.

Lukowski said that pounding or drilling a well may, for a short time, disrupt soil until it has a chance to settle again, and the health department recommends homeowners regularly sample their water.

If residents knows drilling in thier neighborhood is about to start, then they can take a baseline of the water and document any changes in water quality during drilling and after. It would be difficult to prove though, that the changes in water quality were a direct result of the drilling, Lukowski conceded, but there may be short-term changes such as cloudiness, until the aquifer stabilizes.
There is no limit on how far down a developer can drill for water but, Lukowski said, "the deeper they drill, the slimmer their chances of finding water," and that water is usually inferior.

Zoning laws
Are there any zoning techniques a town could use to preserve limited water supplies"

Some zoning districts in New Scotland already make a distinction between on-site wells as opposed to public water. For example, in the town’s 1995 zoning law, an area of town zoned residential-agriculture that has lots with public sewer has a minimum lot size of 33,000 square feet, while areas with on-site water set the minimum higher at 44,000 square feet.

The proposed development at Krumkill and Font Grove Roads is in a residential conservation district (R-2), which does not differentiate what the home’s water supply will be. However, the lot sizes are large in this district all around regardless of water supply; the minimum lot size is 2 acres or about 87,000 square feet. A 1-acre single-family home can be built for each 11 acres in the parcel; then the remainder of the parcel has to be divided into at least 2 acres or larger lots.

Paul Cantlin, New Scotland’s zoning administrator, said that this intersection was labeled as R-2, ten years ago so he doesn’t remember why town officials chose to make no distinction based on utilities for this district.

The obvious answer would be that town officials wanted to maintain large lots in this area of town, regardless of water supply.

The chairman of the Residents Planning Advisory Committee, John Egan, said that his committee did discuss at length zoning techniques to preserve the water supply of areas in town where it is limited, much like it discussed zoning to preserve rural land, but he said the committee could not reach a consensus to form a recommendation for the town.

Egan said the committee also discussed giving the planning board more specific authority when it came to the drilling of private wells in the planning process, such as having the authority to require the applicant to work with an independent evaluator to test the wells.

Approval for Moreau

The planning board approved David Moreau’s three keyhole lots, located on a 15-acre parcel on Youmans Road, behind three existing houses. He received subdivision approval, and special use permits.

He needed special-use permits because the houses are going to be built in what is the town’s commercial district.