PRICE CHOPPER PLANS MAY BE DECIDED BY THE D.E.C.;
WASTEWATER ISSUES RESURFACE AS WELL


Mike McCagg
ccSCOOP News

07-29-11 - Just who will have lead agency status in the review of the proposed new Price Chopper store will likely be determined by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Chatham Village Planning officials and their counterparts with the Town of Ghent have both sought lead agency status in the review of the planned approximately 45,000-square-foot new store on state Route 66. The store would largely be located in the town of Ghent, leading officials there to say their status as lead agency should be a “no brainer”.

“It would be the understatement of the year to say the project is largely located in the town and thus it should be the Ghent Planning Board that takes lead agency status,” said Ghent Planning Board Chairman Jonathan Walters.

Chatham officials only announced plans to seek lead agency status earlier this month after an apparent change of heart in the village. Town officials say the previous village administration had consented to granting Ghent planners lead agency status.

At stake is who conducts the state-mandated state environmental quality review of the project, which is none as SEQR. The SEQR provides communities with a means for evaluating the environmental and economic impacts of proposed development projects.

Village Mayor Tom Curran said the lead agency status is a planning board issue and referred comment to the board. Village Planning Board Chairman Dan Herrick didn’t return a call for comment.

In the meantime, Curran told ccSCOOP that the village has reopened discussions with the store developer over a wastewater connection.

The developer had previously been denied access to the village’s wastewater system, but Curran said the situation has changed in the village and the once over-burdened village wastewater system could now handle the added influx of wastewater from a larger store.

“I have been working on getting approval from DEC to handle their wastewater and up to this point we were not allowed to expand our service to anybody. However, we recently had the (water) infiltration problems dealt with and DEC has now given us permission to expand our services to Price Chopper if they decide to use our service,” the mayor said.

The water infiltration into the wastewater system has been significantly addressed through a relining of the pipes and dealing with owners of Edgewood Acres, as well as the Middle School – both of which had allegedly allowed a lot of groundwater to infiltrate into the wastewater system.

“They gave us an agreement that it would be their first choice,” Curran said of Price Chopper officials, noting that the board would have the ultimate say of whether to allow the grocer onto the village system.

The other choice for Price Chopper is to process its own wastewater. The plans submitted to town planners in February showed a treatment facility on site, but constructing and maintaining its own wastewater system would likely be more expensive than paying the village to handle the effluent.