GUILDERLAND — While Watervliet’s engineer has confidence in a project that would raise the city’s reservoir in Guilderland five feet, some Guilderland residents are wary.

According to Jim Besha, president of Albany Engineering Corporation, consulting engineer for Watervliet, the plan is to modify the dam on the Normanskill to stabilize the surface of the reservoir at 267 feet above sea level. Currently, Besha said, the reservoir fluctuates with the seasons, reaching 267 feet only in the spring.

The higher dam would increase the reservoir’s capacity by half, flooding 50 acres to bring the surface area to about 980 acres. Watervliet plans to sell the excess water to other municipalities in need.

Computer-operated steel gates would replace wooden flashboards on the top of the concrete dam, automatically altering the flow out of the reservoir to maintain the water level. Watervliet taxpayers would pick up the $3 million bill.

At a meeting Tuesday afternoon at the Best Western in Guilderland, reservoir neighbor James Green noted that part of his property floods every spring.
"If we go to 267 full time, is that field going to be underwater"" Green asked.

Other Guilderland residents are concerned about pollution in the reservoir. Built in 1915 and owned by Watervliet, it provides drinking water to all of Watervliet and those in Guilderland with public water.

Thadeus Ausfeld, who runs the Guilderland water-treatment plant, warned against sedimentation. Mud and other material from upstream is slowly clogging the reservoir, and will eventually bury Guilderland’s water intake pipes, Ausfeld said.
"We’re going to make a swamp into a bigger swamp. It doesn’t make sense," Ausfeld told The Enterprise.

Charles Rielly co-chairs, with Ausfeld, the Restoration Advisory Board which advises the Army Corps of Engineers on the cleanup of the old Army depot in Guilderland Center. The Black Creek, which the depot had used to remove waste, feeds the reservoir. At Tuesday’s meeting, Rielly read a prepared statement warning against sedimentation and pollution off of nearby Route 20.

Both Ausfeld and Rielly, along with some other Restoration Advisory Board members, support dredging the reservoir before changes are made to the dam. They have been unable to convince the Army Corps of Engineers to pay for tests that would document whether toxic waste from the old depot has migrated to the reservoir.
"Along Route 20, where fishing was once popular in my lifetime, only a foot or so of water covers a large area of mudflats," Rielly said. "Dredging these mudflats and depositing the material on the bank would extend the shoreline out from the highway, thereby providing a buffer for vehicular accidents and possible terrorist attacks."

Besha has said the reservoir doesn’t need to be dredged.
"From an environmental standpoint, there’s just not that much sediment in the reservoir," he told The Enterprise in April.

The Watervliet Reservoir’s watershed is one of the largest in the state, Besha said. It covers nine towns, three counties, and 120 square miles. Because the watershed is so large, he said, the reservoir almost always stays near its full capacity even while other local reservoirs, like the Alcove Reservoir in Coeymans, decline significantly in dry seasons.

However, Ausfeld and Rielly are worried the large watershed could be a source of pollutants and silt. They recommend creating a comprehensive watershed management plan.
"Watervliet should take charge," Ausfeld said.

Besha countered that Watervliet only has control over the reservoir.
"They can’t tell the town of Knox, the town of Duanesburg, the town of Guilderland what they can and cannot do in the watershed," Besha said. The only city in the state that has been given that kind of power is New York City, he said.

After the meeting, Besha questioned Ausfeld and Rielly’s data. He showed The Enterprise a map of the watershed his firm prepared with 1,272 data points, indicating very little pollution. If the water were polluted, Besha said, Watervliet wouldn’t do the project, because it wouldn’t be able to sell the water to other municipalities.

A man, a plan, a dam

The Watervliet Reservoir is in the center of Guilderland, surrounded by routes 20, 158, and 146. Few people see it in its entirety, at least legally. The reservoir is closed to the public except for a small fishing area on the south shore.

Last Thursday, Besha, who grew up in Guilderland and now lives in Berne, led local press on a tour of the reservoir in a Watervliet boat. Though the Everglades-style airboat broke down several times on the trip and eventually ran out of gas, forcing the reporters to paddle back to shore, Besha got a chance to explain Watervliet’s vision.

Once the gates are in place, he said, the reservoir’s capacity will increase about 50 percent, from 1.29 billion gallons to 1.9 billion gallons, flooding 50 acres in a thin strip along the jagged shoreline, owned by Watervliet, bringing the total surface area up to roughly 480 acres. The trees on the shore will be cut back to make room for the expansion, Besha said.

The extra water will accommodate the needs of Watervliet and a growing Guilderland with enough left over to sell to other towns, Besha said. Some towns have already expressed interest, he said, but he declined to say which.

As the boat crossed the water last Thursday, it cut a path through a dense mass of floating plants: European water chestnuts. Though too much chestnut growth in the reservoir is bad for water quality, Besha said, the water chestnuts suck up a lot of nutrients, keeping worse invaders, like millfoil, out.
"We try to control it but not eradicate it," he said.

Along the shore, small but steep cliffs of clay and dirt rise out of the water in several spots. At Tuesday’s meeting, a few residents said the reservoir is eroding into the shoreline and they are worried the increase in surface level will make the problem worse.
"In the past 50 years, I’ve lost about 15 feet on the other side of the road in front of my house," said one elderly woman who lives near the reservoir.

John Privitera, an attorney who represents a family that lives along the reservoir, told Besha to be prepared for massive erosion, however uncommon. He mentioned how a section of Delaware Avenue went plummeting towards the Normanskill a few years ago, rerouting traffic between Delmar and Albany for months.
"We really have to think about that 500-year sloping event," Privitera said.

Stabilizing the reservoir may actually slow down erosion, Besha said.
"We believe that increasing the depth of the reservoir may improve the water quality and minimize erosion," Besha said. Later in the meeting, he said, "If the reservoir was taken out entirely, the slopes would still be unstable because of what they are."

To all those who had questions and comments at the meeting, Besha said there is a lot more work to do.

Because a small amount of hydro-power is generated by the water overflowing the dam, the project requires approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Watervliet is applying for an amendment to its license from the commission, and part of that process is a series of studies.

Among other things, Besha said, the city will be completing a water quality and sedimentation study; a historical and archeological survey; a topographic and bathymetric survey, measuring depth; a geotechnical slope-stability study; and a recreational-use survey.

In addition, Besha said, Watervliet will lead a full environmental impact assessment under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), though the state Department of Environmental Conservation does not require it for hydro-electric projects.
Still, residents are cautious. Green’s wife, Susan Green, remembered "fish going through my lower field" during a particularly wet spring.
"I really think that there’s too much of a rush to this project," Mrs. Green said.