Route 12’s Salt Storage Facility (under the auspices of New York’s Department of Transportation) has been blamed for water faucet contamination. After over a decade of complaints and legal action taken, as well as over $15 million being put into the construction of the necessary infrastructure, 500+ property owners can now drink the water from their faucets with confidence.
In 2015, the New York Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers ranked New York’s infrastructure from Long Island to Massena ‘C.’ Yet at that time 95 percent of funding requests for infrastructure enhancement were rejected. According to New York Report Card Committee Chairman, Bud Griffis:
“The Report Card shows that our infrastructure is only as good as the weakest links and that we have a lot of areas that need improvement.”
This endeavor was launched by the Orleans Town Council back in 2012. It is anticipated that the entire project will be completed in 2020.
Over in Newark, NJ, it was recently announced that $120 million is being put into replacing around 18,000 very old service pipes over the next two and a half years. The situation of problematic water from faucets in the area escalated around a year ago when faucet water filters were distributed to remove lead that had been getting through. Just recently tests were found that some of these filters were not doing an adequate job and the city was forced to provide bottled water.