ALTAMONT — The village of Altamont was recently notified of a $3.38 million grant to aid the village in its yearslong attempt to secure a viable drinking-water backup for the village.

Mayor Kerry Dineen made the announcement during the Dec. 3 meeting of the Altamont Board of Trustees. Trustees in June approved bonding up to $4.7 million to make the interconnection with Guilderland a reality. 

“It’s a 70-30 grant,” Dineen said, meaning the village is on the hook for 30 percent of the project’s cost. “It is a big deal. Because it’s about drinking water,” and because the proposed project had to do with drinking water, she said, the state “actually upped” the award “to 70 percent, which is wonderful.” 

What the emergency line means, Dineen said on Dec. 3, “is we are not purchasing water from Guilderland. It is an emergency [back-up] should we need it.”

The interconnect, Dineen explained during a prior meeting, helps to partially solve another village water problem: “So, we really have always had two problems,” the mayor said in June. “We’ve been wanting that transmission line for a long time and we need to fix Brandle Road.”

In February 2022, Altamont was notified that a sample from the Brandle Road wellsite contained 0.59 milligrams of manganese per liter; the maximum contaminant level allowed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency is 0.3 milligrams per liter. 

The village shut down the wellsite soon after; when operating, it produces about a third of Altamont’s drinking-water supply, but has largely been closed save for periods of peak usage, at which point the Brandle Road supply gets mixed into the village’s other water supply, from Gun Club Road.