LOWVILLE — Lewis County officials may add a sewage treatment component to the nearly completed study on potential municipal water improvements.
County legislators at their meeting Tuesday evening will discuss having Burley-Guminiak & Associates, Canton, conduct a sewer feasibility study for $24,480.
Burley-Guminiak, in conjunction with O'Brien & Gere of Syracuse and Hydrosource Associates Inc., Ashland, N.H., already is working on a $53,205 water source identification/infrastructure-development feasibility study for the county.
It makes sense to have it do a sewer study as well, said Legislator Richard C. Lucas, R-Barnes Corners, chairman of the legislative Economic Development Committee.
When companies are looking to locate in an area, "you need water, but you also need wastewater," Mr. Lucas said.
The water study is intended to identify potential new water sources that could be developed to entice and accommodate new development, evaluate the most practical and cost-effective ways to develop and maintain new systems and identify potential funding sources. All existing municipal water systems in the county also are to be studied.
The water study should be completed by the end of this month, and a sewer component may be done by then as well, Mr. Lucas said.
Funding for both the water and sewer studies would come from the county's Economic Development Projects fund.
A separate resolution on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting would authorize the transfer of $111,011 from that fund for those two studies, along with $19,306 toward the ongoing countywide comprehensive plan project, $10,000 for a biodigester study and $3,500 for agritourism.
An informal group has been developing the idea of a community anaerobic digester, at which agricultural and food waste would be converted to biogas, in the Lowville area. Plans are to have Cornell University, Ithaca, conduct a feasibility study for such a digester.
Other funding would have to be secured before the county would commit any money toward the project, Mr. Lucas said.
The agritourism funding, if approved, likely would be used to help the Lewis County Chamber of Commerce on its Internet-only video, or webisode, project with EscapeMaker.com, Mr. Lucas said.
A film crew from the Internet travel business in Brooklyn was in Lewis County last week to obtain footage from area agritourism sites, like the Maple Ridge Wind Farm and the winery being developed in West Lowville.
Four 90-second webisodes will be developed from the footage and posted on Escapemaker.com, which promotes other organizations' vacation destinations and packages.