RENSSELAERVILLE —  A flurry of resignations announced at the June 9 meeting of the town board  created two volunteer vacancies — one on  the planning board and one on the ethics board — and  a vacancy in an important town job.

Water Treatment Officer Doug Story announced at the meeting that he would be leaving his post June 24. He has been in the job since 2012.

Rensselaerville draws its water from Myosotis Lake, which is located in the northern part of the township and is fed by Ten Mile Creek. From the lake,  the creek continues its course south as a tributary of Catskill Creek.

Story prefaced his monthly report to the board by remarking, “I feel a little like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day,” a reference to the movie in which the main character seems doomed to relive the same day over and over again.

It’s the delivery of  his monthly report to the board  that seems to give  him that Groundhog Day feeling. At last week’s meeting, he warned again about  two problems that are continuing, connected and uncorrected:  water consumption higher than it should be and too much water wasted.

He reported the water system filtered 468,000 gallons of water to meet May demand. However, town wastewater output that month was  only  about half that amount — 226,800 gallons. Generally, according to water supply experts, the ratio of wastewater output to water consumption input should approach 1 to 1. The imbalance indicates a lot of water is being wasted, Story maintains.

He also says water consumption rates are higher than they should be. The daily average in early May was 11,000 gallons, about 4,000 gallons greater than expected. Then on May 18,  consumption “suddenly jumped to 17,000 gallons. And then, in the last couple of days, to over 25,000.”

This  higher demand puts increased stress on the system’s aging slow sand filter. “The filter has been in use  for “as long as the 25 years I have been here,” he says, and  has lost efficiency. Though rated to handle  25.000 gallons daily,  the “pretty dirty” state of the deepest level of the sand impedes flow, Story says. Counteracting this problem requires a lot of  extra work, “conditioning “ the sand  to increase the rate of flow, he says.

He joked that the bottom-most level of the filter  is “pretty effective because nothing gets through it,” at  least not without some help and extra work.

But “rebuilding” the sand filter from the bottom up might  require the entire water system to be shut down for as long as two weeks, he explained, to allow enough time for the biological matting — the filter’s essential element — to regrow.

He reminded the board that he has appealed to the water/sewer committee to adopt what he considers the only viable option for effectively limiting  over-consumption and reducing wasted water.  He called for installing consumer water meters, but his proposal met with   an “emphatic no” from the committee, he says.

“So we have no means of addressing this issue [of wasted water] other than knocking on doors,” he said. “And, quite frankly, I am sick of knocking on doors.”

After making his monthly report, Story announced his resignation. He explained that he now has two other jobs and no longer has time to oversee town water sourcing and distribution.

Supervisor Valerie Lounsbury thanked Story for his service and his resignation was accepted by the board.

Asked after the meeting if his resignation might have been prompted by the problems he had just  described in his report, Story said no.

Story told the board his assistant, John Rice, has qualified for his water operator

certification  from New York State. Lounsbury said this week she expects Rice  to be named to the job, after confirmation by the water/sewer committee and the town board.

Two other resignations were announced by Lounsbury: Barry Kuhar, a member of the planning board, and  Diana Hinchcliff,  a member of the ethics board.

Kuhar was among the members of the planning board who by unanimous vote earlier this year recommended MaryAnne Overbaugh to fill a vacancy.  But their recommendation was overruled by the town board, which appointed another candidate, Laura Bates

The board discussed at some length how to find volunteers to fill  the vacant seats and decided to advertise both posts,

Other business

— Authorized the highway department to resurface the  parking lot at the town hall;

— Authorized the highway department to rent a paving roller on a monthly basis; and

— Requested Mark Overbaugh, the code enforcement officer, to determine who owns a collapsed structure on Fox Creek Road. Councilwoman Margaret Sedlmeir said she believes it presents a safety hazard, as well as being unsightly.