GUILDERLAND — The Guilderland Town Board on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution to bond $6,796,970 to rehabilitate and upgrade three town-owned wells on Route 155, near the intersection with Nott Road. 

“The general project we’re looking to do is to build a filtration plant specifically for our three municipal wells that have high iron levels. As part of that, we are submitting a grant application to be able to fund the project,” town engineer Jesse Fraine told board members on Aug. 19.

The bonding, Fraine explained, is needed as part of the grant submission, which requires documentation through the Consolidated Funding Application to the Environmental Facilities Corporation.

Were the town to receive the grant, 60 percent of the project cost would be covered by the state. Fraine explained that, in passing the bond resolution, the town is demonstrating to the state that, if it receives the funding, Guilderland will be able to cover the difference. 

Fraine said the overall project, based on drawdown tests, shows a potential capacity of 12 million gallons per day — the three wells are currently offline — “so that is what we’re ultimately working toward.”

The town’s primary water source is the Watervliet-owned Watervliet Reservoir in western Guilderland; the raw water is filtered at the town’s filtration plan in the Northeastern Industrial Park. The town is able to draw up to five million gallons per day from the reservoir.  

In 2024, according to the town, “The daily average of water treated and pumped into the distribution system was 2,705,796 gallons per day. Our highest single day was 5,435,000 gallons.”

During high-demand periods or potential emergencies, Guilderland supplements its water supply by purchasing fully-treated water from Rotterdam and Albany. A Nott Road filtration plant would be Guilderland’s only wholly-owned source of water. 

During discussion of the project at the board’s July meeting, Councilwoman Amanda Beedle noted the price the board had discussed earlier for the filtration system had gone from about $4 million to about $6 million and asked what else it was going to cover.

Supervisor Peter Barber responded, “It’s the same project, but I’m going to guess, like everything else over the past several years,” the price has gone up.