Saranac Lake village puts sand/salt shed to bid
By NATHAN BROWN, Enterprise Staff WriterSARANAC LAKE - The village Board of Trustees voted Monday evening to start to accept bids on three different shapes and two sizes of sand/salt sheds.
By a 4-0 vote, with Mayor Tom Michael absent, the board decided to take bids on 9,600-square-foot sheds, which is the size the village would need, and 11,000-square-foot sheds, which is the size the village and the town of Harrietstown would need to store their sand and salt together.
The three shapes are a wooden dome, a wooden rectangle and a Titan 3, the style the village and town received bids on last year and rejected when the lowest came back at more than $700,000.
The village will take bids on three components - blacktop, concrete containment and the structure itself. It will not receive bids on the foundation, as that is site-specific, leaving open the possibility of building on either the village garage property on Van Buren Street or the town garage property on John Munn Road.
"This isn't all that complicated," said Trustee John McEneany, who proposed the resolution. "It will give us the numbers we need to go forward."
Both municipalities currently have uncovered sand piles that also contain salt. The shed would likely go on the site of either the current village or town pile; the town already has a permit from the state Adirondack Park Agency to build a shed on the site of its pile.
The village and town have been discussing building a joint sand/salt shed for a number of years. An ongoing study on further consolidation of the two municipalities, which will be finished in about 14 months, could provide more information on what would be a better location.
However, the Adirondack Council has threatened to sue the village over its uncovered sand pile, alleging it is leaching salt into Lake Colby, and a state Department of Environmental Conservation consent order requires the village to have a written plan to deal with the situation by Oct. 30.
"It would be great if we could wait for the consolidation study to be done," said Trustee Susan Waters. "We obviously can't."
Village and town officials originally discussed building on Van Buren Street earlier this decade, said Trustee Jeff Branch, but this changed to John Munn Road several years ago, and the two municipalities signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to build there in 2006.
Branch said he thought building on Van Buren Street would be cheaper. He also said the Van Buren Street site has better stormwater drainage, according to state Department of Environmental Conservation officials. He also pointed out that the Van Buren Street garage, which was rebuilt less than a decade ago after being destroyed in a fire, is newer.
The town has applied for $800,000 in stimulus money to build a shed, and town officials have said they plan to build on the town site if they get it.
"That's going to be used as pressure for me to do something I don't think is a wise decision," Branch said.
Village Manager Marty Murphy said he will meet with Harrietstown officials Thursday to discuss the issue.
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Contact Nathan Brown at 891-2600 ext. 26 or nbrown@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
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Outlaw63446
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07-09-09 7:21 AM
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While the DEC probably does have the authority to order you to prevent any runoff reaching the stream, I doubt that they have the authority to tell you HOW to do it. $800,000.00??? If the trustees really want a shed, then build one. The runoff problem can be dealt with using simpler and less costly methods. Concrete bunker blocks ("mafia blocks") can be obtained at any ready mix concrete company, and could be placed around the site, one or two blocks high, and arranged to preclude any runoff. It might cost a hundred bucks a year to check, straighten, and maintain them, but the savings is in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. I would recommend building the cheapest containment possible, that accomplishes the mission. The cynical side of me says, "just eliminate all road sanding and salting, and close the site". I don't suppose that any of the salt or sand that is put on the roads ever runs off into streams of lakes. That will be the next issue.
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contrary1
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07-07-09 11:29 AM
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Gee, considering John McEnany's extensive background as a contractor, all the municipality really needs, is a bid for labor. Isn't anyone else aware of how much construction work this man has done? And there is still no mention of the $175,000 already appropriated for this project. Why did the Mayor recuse himself from the vote? Is his brother and HES Realty in line for another sweatheart deal, for the John Munn Road property this time? An old song says, "You don't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need". Saranac Lake needs to protect themselves. If Mr. Branch was actually trying to git'r'done, instead of manuevering for position to benefit, this would have been done years ago. It isn't always about what a small group of entitled ones want, it's about what the "community" needs. Saranac Lake/Harrietstown NEEDS a saltshed, not another sweatheart deal that stinks of organized criminal activity.
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