RENSSELAERVILLE — Cold weather wreaked havoc on the aging water system in the hamlet of Rensselaerville this winter.

Gerard Wallace, who chairs Rensselaerville’s Water and Sewer Advisory Committee — made up of citizen volunteers, told the town board at its Feb. 12 meeting, “This week, we had three broken pipes.”

Two could be turned off with the curb stops, he said, referencing an underground water shutoff valve located on the service line between the water main and a building, typically near the property line or curb.

At the third one, for the library, Wallace said, “The curb stop doesn’t even exist.”

He went on, “It’s a bent pipe, so you can’t get down to the turn key …. It’s the responsibility of the library but, if it burst, we’re responsible to turn off the water.”

Without a functioning curb stop, there was no way to turn off the water.

“We dug and dug and dug and finally the plumber showed up at the library and announced pretty definitively that he felt the pipe wouldn’t burst and, if it did burst, the water in the service line was likely to run down the street,” said Wallace.

Wallace said that he and the others wielding shovels decided that digging up the line in sub-freezing weather was “a hopeless project.” He went on, “So we decided on a calculated risk to let it go to the spring … So this raises the issue about the curb stops and a project that had been kind of hedging forward but not full blast.”

The plan now is to hire a contractor in the spring to unearth the curb stops.

Some of the curb stops have been buried for so long, Wallace said, “They even have stone over them, like curbs.”

He said of the library pipe, “When we got down and uncovered it, it was bent like this.” Wallace lifted his left index finger and curved it over to illustrate the bend in the library pipe.

“And not only that” he went on, “it was filled. In six-degree weather, that’s not the kind of thing that you can easily empty out without contamination by using some kind of antifreeze.”

Wallace said he contacted the town clerk, Victoria Kraker. “We sent out a notice to the water users that there’s potential, as these pipes start to de-freeze because the weather’s getting a little warmer and we could have more problems: Please look into your pipes and please be responsible and get back to us with anything.

“And the next thing I know, I’ve got some guy in New York City calling me up: I’m worried my pipes are frozen. Could you go over and look at them? … I did, you know? What am I going to do? …. It’s an emergency,” said Wallace.

He said he wanted to be sure there wasn’t another leak. The municipal system serves 79 homes.

The system’s holding tank was down to 20 inches of water, Wallace said, whereas 50 to 65 inches is normal.

It turned out a home’s basement had flooded. “That’s where our water was going,” said Wallace.

Once that was solved, he said, the water in the tank started rising and, as of Feb. 12, was up to about 40 inches.

Wallace concluded his story, “I’m saying Hail Marys and hoping nothing else happens.”

He went on to advocate for water meters, and said the committee is waiting to hear back from a pro bono lobbyist who could reach out to legislators on the issue.

The committee is also looking at billing rates for the water and sewer district. “All we do is count faucets; we count outlets right now,” said Wallace. “We want to look at that this summer and update it. And, if we can get water meters in our new year, we’ll get out of that ridiculous antiquity of a system.”

Other business 

In other business at its Feb. 12 meeting, the Rensselaerville Town Board:

— Heard from Supervisor John Dolce that applications for the Kuhar Endowment Fund, from money left to the town by the late Jeffrey Bogue, will be opened on March 3 at 6 p.m. “We will not be making a decision that night,” said Dolce.

The town attorney, William Ryan of Tabner, Ryan & Kinery, said that the Rensselaerville water district cannot participate since “the language within the endowment says the money is to be used for town-wide purposes.” The water district serves just the hamlet;

— Heard from Highway Superintendent Jason Rauf that his department has been “super busy” with the cold and snow. “All equipment is currently operational,” he said. “We’re fully staffed. Salt and sand shed is full.”

He said material usage was up from the past few years “but still within our budget.”

Dolce praised the highway crew for its work this winter;

Rauf also reported that “trash numbers” were down about 50 tons from the prior year. “So that’s good news,” he said;

— Heard from Ryan that he is setting up a reserve fund for the highway department, as requested by Rauf, for highway infrastructure;

—Heard from Dolce that the town had budgeted $700,000 from county sales tax but is receiving $875,000. Additionally, the town received almost $38,000 in mortgage tax, he said;

— Heard from the town clerk on collecting taxes. “For January we were doing taxes and nothing but,” she said, adding, “Our warrant is paid.” By the end of January, 70 percent of the total for the year had been collected, she said;

— Heard from Dolce that the town’s code-enforcement officer and building inspector, Timothy Lippert, “is making progress on some of the unsafe buildings. Two of them are now on the market … One of the listings went down $300,000,” Dolce said.

Ryan said one building had been torn down and other properties have corrected their problems.

“That is a goal for us,” said Dolce. “We don’t want to have Rensselaerville a slum”;

— Heard Dolce read the report from Assessor Peter Hotaling that there were 12 transfers in January — six for estate planning and six residential. In December, there were six transfers for estate planning and two residential.

The assessor’s office, Dolce said, has been “very busy processing exemptions. Anyone turning 65 this year may qualify for the senior age exemption”; and

— Heard from Dolce that he asked the library to send the town board a report to “see what they have available so people will take advantage of it.” He went on, “They have interesting things. I just had to try to find a better way to put it out.”

Viviane Galloway writes a weekly column for The Altamont Enterprise highlighting activities at the Rensselaerville Library and its Medusa branch