KINGSTON >> The total cost in relation to repairs at the ruptured transmission water line in the Sawkill Creek will be approximately $250,000, including overtime pay for Kingston Water Department employees, an official said Wednesday.
Water Department Superintendent Judith Hansen said $10,000 of the amount is overtime cost, with payments made to Arold Paving Co. also included. Arold made the repairs on the 18-inch wide transmission main.
Meanwhile, Hansen said the water levels at the Binnewater Reservoir have risen to 8.5 million gallons. At the time of the pipe’s rupture, the water levels had shrunk from its normal 12 million gallons to 6 million.
Hansen has said if the leak had not been discovered for another day the department would have run out of water.
The rupture occurred about 11 a.m. on Feb. 16 and found a in the Sawkill Creek in the town of Kingston a day later, around 1:30 p.m.
The water flows from Cooper Lake reservoir in Woodstock to the filtration plant and then to the Binnewater reservoir. From there, it flows by gravity to Kingston.
Besides the payment to Arold and employees overtime, Hansen said the costs include engineering work, the installation of a temporary pumping system to service the Golden Hill Health Care Center, and for a tanker of portable water for town of Kingston residents that were without water.
The $250,000 cost also includes payments that will be made to the town of Ulster for water that it supplied from the Ulster Water District.
Hansen said it will be up to the Board of Water Commissioners to decide how to pay for the costs. She said the department maintains a $750,000 fund for capital improvements.
But, Hansen said, the board could decide not to use funding from there and borrow the money. In order to do that, the department would need to get Common Council approval and the go-ahead by Mayor Shayne Gallo.
Town of Ulster Supervisor James Quigley said Wednesday the town is no longer supplying that water to Kingston. However, Quigley said, the town is not taking in up to 700,000 million gallons a day it normally purchases from the Kingston Water Department.
Quigley said that practice would continue until Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the Kingston Water Department was forced to make more repairs on a water main on Frog Alley.
In all, about 45,000 gallons of water leaked out of a cracked pipe there before the flow was shut off, Hansen said.