The County Water System continues to grow and provide an affordable complementary source of water for many communities. Supervisor Ray Callanan of Ballston and I were members of the Saratoga County Water Committee in the early 2000s. Supervisor Callanan served as Chairman of the committee. At that time, I was a newly elected Supervisor working to fix issues in Clifton Park and the County. We were working with engineers on creating an affordable plan to tap into an infinite source of safe drinking water for communities and large end users across the County. This effort would ensure communities have a choice in planning their future water needs. Eventually, the Saratoga County Water Authority was formed. As a board member of the SCWA, I can state the team is working hard to continually improve our operations and increase supply. The SCWA continues its mission to support our communities. We do not sell to neighborhoods or small end users. The SCWA has and will continue to fulfill its mission to be a wholesale provider of water.
The planning process for the system continued as we also recruited customers for water commitments. Clifton Park and the Clifton Park Water Authority were supportive of this initiative from the beginning. If you lived in Clifton Park in the 1990s/ very early 2000s you are keenly aware of the water issues we experienced. Very tight restrictions on outdoor water use was a regular occurrence, and we knew there were two choices- invest many millions of dollars into creating, expanding and maintaining our home-grown sources or consider other options to complement our own sources. The structure of Clifton Park’s public water supply, in the time period we were working on the County Water Plan, was disjointed. Rexford has its own water entity that purchased water from the Town of Glenville. The Rexford system was suffering from an aged and troubled infrastructure system with relatively few customers. The Clifton Park Water Authority had a large system and served the bulk of the Town. The first investment was to connect the CPWA with the Rexford system, which solved two problems. The entirety of our system would now have the ability to utilize water from Glenville and the rate payers supporting the Rexford system would now no longer be on their own as they faced significant rate increases due to infrastructure needs. Economies of scale and the availability of another large water source would benefit the entirety of our systems. The original goals have been met, and this investment was an important first step in resolving our water needs. Making this decisive step then as opposed to years later, has saved our water users in Clifton Park a tremendous amount of money.
As we continued to plan the County system and recruit customers, Saratoga Springs was a natural prospect to buy water, due to their size and available water sources at that time, such as Loughberry. The DPW Commissioner at that time was working toward tapping into Saratoga Lake. The choice was similar to the options we had in Clifton Park. Seek and solidify complementary sources of water or invest millions in our own finite sources. To this day the connection to Saratoga Springs has not occurred.
The Saratoga County Water Authority now serves 11 municipalities and large end users such as Global Foundries. We have contracts with these customers that state a minimum contracted amount they will buy, with the ability to sell as much as each customer may need. Obviously during the summer months, water usage increases significantly, and our sales reflect that reality. Committing to a minimum contracted amount of water with each customer allows for proper planning. Tracking water use trends amongst our customers during times of peak usage indicates the need for future investments to meet demand. Our customers have benefitted from a multitude of positive developments through the years: an affordable infinite supply, flexibility on the amount of water a customer can purchase throughout the year, a choice to expand home sources knowing they have a complementary source available at all times and solid contracts that guarantee pricing for years allows our customers to budget well into the future. Having the option of comparing the cost of investing in current, typically finite sources of water or purchasing water long term from an affordable, reliable source is also an important option for municipal planning. Clifton Park also benefitted with the ability to take finite, hard sources of water offline in favor of the soft water supplied by the County System.
When the County water system became more of a reality, unfortunately politics entered the equation on the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors and years earlier in municipalities such as Saratoga Springs. Ultimately, the Clifton Park Water Authority originally committed to purchasing 1 million gallons per day in the beginning of the planning process and that commitment was in place when the County water began flowing. In fact, that level of commitment remains the same today, however the CPWA purchases more than that amount on average. Our sovereignty has not been challenged in Clifton Park nor have there been any issues involving that subject amongst the other 10 customers. The CPWA remains an important part of our municipality in Clifton Park and serves many people in Malta. Ultimately, our residents and businesses have realized incredible advantages. Global Foundries remains a private business that is publicly traded. The relationship between GF and the SCWA has remained the same- the company buys water and we supply the resource.
It is clear demand will grow from current customers and potentially more municipalities will turn to the Saratoga County Water Authority for supply. We are closer to completing the building of a new water tank and have also initiated plans for infrastructure improvements to expand supply. We are able to make these investments and properly plan for the future from a very strong fiscal position. We will speak to any municipality about the prospect of joining the growing number of customers. However, the situation is far different now than it was when the County Water Committee began planning for what would become the SCWA. We have plenty of customers, and we expect demand to grow with just our current customer base. We are proud to be a prime, affordable, complementary source of water for our County.
The SCWA is one of many examples of the benefits of our form of government in Saratoga County. The Board of Supervisors is comprised of elected leaders who also have direct leadership responsibilities in the towns they represent. Although our communities are very different in many aspects, we all face the same basic challenges of managing a municipality each day. We speak the same language and understand shared concerns. We don’t need to convince a separately elected group of people at the County, what are the proper solutions for our County. We separate good policy from parochialism. Saratoga County is only one of a handful of counties that owns and operates an Animal Shelter. The SCWA, Sheriff’s Office and the Saratoga County Sewer System are just three other examples of the Board of Supervisors working at the County level to share services and provide resources for the entire County, reducing the cost for all taxpayers and rate payers through economies of scale. Saratoga County’s form of government and sound strategic decisions through the years, has assisted Saratoga County’s standing as having the lowest County taxes, lowest sales tax rate and lowest spending per capita for Counties in New York State. If each municipality offered duplicative services, your County and local taxes would assuredly be much higher. In the case of the SCWA, the people that use the system support the system. A municipality that is not receiving water from the SCWA today, may choose to do so in the future. If that choice is made, we will have that discussion. If more municipalities choose not to be a customer of the SCWA, we will remain in a very strong position.
Clifton Park and Beyond 