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"I really wonder how the rest of the Village would weigh in," said Village Trustee Lynn Leopold.  Many residents of Cayuga Heights Road attended Monday's Trustee meeting after the Town of Lansing made the final choice to build a sewer trunk line from Myers Point down along Cayuga Heights Road to the Cayuga Heights sewage treatment plant.  Residents in the neighborhood oppose the route, favoring a route along East Shore Drive (Route 34).


But the East Shore option came to a grinding halt last Friday as the difference in cost between the two routes went up from an estimated $400,000 to more than $500,00 when the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) insisted on more regulations than previously anticipated for building on the State road.  Village officials had hoped those regulations would be relaxed after Mayor Don Hartill presented the DOT with a traffic study showing how a detour onto Cayuga Heights and Triphammer Roads might allow the closing of East Shore.  If the DOT had allowed that the cost of the two routes would have been approximately the same.  Town officials have said that it is simply a matter of cost and that they would use the East Shore route is costs were the same.  

Under pressure from the State to either build the sewer or risk losing bond act money allotted to the project,  they also said that June 1 was the longest the Town could wait before they would start losing money on engineering costs if the route were to change.

The Town would still be willing to build along East Shore if the Village agrees to pay the difference.  But Trustees noted that they could pay up to a quarter of a million dollars for the full engineering plan required by the DOT and it could still be denied.  None was willing to take that risk.  Hartill also noted that DOT lawyers hadn't yet reviewed the plan, and are likely to put still more costly obstacles in the way, fearing liability if construction machinery and excavation is left on the State road evenings.

All was not bleak, however.  Trustees discussed benefits to the Village the Cayuga Heights Road route may afford.  Close to the capacity of their current sewer, the Village could take advantage of the open trench to lay their own gravity feed sewer line parallel to the Town's pipe at a fraction of the cost of doing the excavation themselves.


Hartill explained his calculation for the Village's contribution to the project.  The Village's maximum build out is estimated at about 1000 new units, while officials say the likely build out is close to 700.  Hartill estimates an average 300 gallons of sewer usage per day.  "I come out with something like 200,000 gallons," he explained.  "The projected use for the township is more like a million gallons a day.  So a fair way of looking at the Village's share is to take one and a quarter million gallons as the denominator and a quarter million gallons for the Village's share.  If I do that simple algebra I come out with 20% of the cost."  He pointed out that is 20% of the part of the project not covered by State funding, not 20% of the total project cost.  He estimated the Village's share at about $200,000.

Trustees expressed concern that they have control over the quality of the construction if it is to go through their village.  Trustee Frank Moore, also the Village's representative on the Town's sewer committee, said, "My concern is that we don't give any final approval until we see a final design.  The other thing I'm still queasy about is what would our authority be over this thing?"  Leopold seemed the most conflicted, struggling with the fact that she (along with Hartill and Moore) live in the affected vicinity.  She weighed the benefits against the disruption to the neighborhood and did not find a good solution.

These were two key issues that residents had also expressed concerns over.  Some residents said they want to deal with their Village officials if something goes wrong with the sewer.  Hartill assured them that the Village would own their section of the sewer and that even if they contracted with the Town to make repairs that residents would call the Village office in such a case.  "This better be gold plated going along Cayuga Heights Road," Leopold said, while other Trustees agreed they would not accept standard construction that they feared might fail in some way.

"I'm hearing an acquiescence to Cayuga Heights Road," said Hartill after Trustees weighed in on the route.  Trustees agreed, but did not vote on whether to allow the Town to build along the right of way.  They planned to do so in a meeting next week.

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