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Tompkins County, on behalf of the Tompkins County Council of Governments (TCCOG), has received $82,245 from New York State to create a countywide evaluation of water and wastewater systems. Tompkins County Area Development, Inc. (TCAD) led the effort to select the consultant and apply for the grant under the New York State Shared Municipal Services Initiative (SMSI) program.

The grant award was announced in April 2008, but the contract was subsequently delayed to permit additional State review related to the economic downturn. Although the grant amount is slightly less than the initial award, the modified grant is sufficient to complete the project. More than $9,000 in local matching funds will come from the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency (IDA).

”Water and sewer infrastructure has many important roles,” notes Martha Armstrong, TCAD Vice President and Director of Economic Development Planning. “The study is a critical step toward achieving affordable housing and community revitalization goals of the Tompkins County Economic Development Strategy.”

“Planning for public water and sewer capacity is essential if we are to focus growth in appropriate areas, and protect farmland and valued natural areas from development pressure,” adds County Planning and Public Works Commissioner Ed Marx. “Also, meeting the housing needs of the community can only be achieved if we have public water and sewer systems that allow housing to be built at a density that is affordable to middle income residents.”

Updating and expanding upon analysis prepared by TCAD in 1994, the study will generate essential data  to support concept-level planning. In communities that have accomplished extensive water or sewer planning, the initiative will summarize current and anticipated activities. For areas of the county which have engaged in limited or no infrastructure planning, the report will establish a basis for preliminary engineering evaluation and development of planning concepts. The objective is to have a single source of information that provides consistent and comparable data on

• Existing systems, including evaluation of current service gaps;
• Planned systems, including evaluation of future demand and potential service gaps; and
• Physical planning and financial analysis for expected and planned future growth.

“Understanding the past, present, and future of water and sewer infrastructure, on a countywide basis, is critical to inter-municipal cooperation for meeting our collective economic and affordable housing goals,” says Caroline Town Supervisor Don Barber, who chairs the Council of Governments.

TCCOG, which includes the county’s 17 municipalities, is an association of local governments organized to provide a forum for discussion and negotiation leading to agreements for more efficient and fiscally responsible delivery of government services. Among its responsibilities as the community's lead economic development agency, Tompkins County Area Development is responsible for creating and implementing the local comprehensive economic development strategy and
manages both the county IDA and the Empire Zones program.