By CRAIG FREILCH

CANTON – Mayor Michael Dalton’s chief concern as he begins his first term in the village’s top post is maintaining, upgrading or replacing aging public works such as the existing water supply and water and sewer lines.

“Infrastructure is going to be the priority of my time here,” Dalton said.

Economic development is one of the motivators for Dalton to make certain that public works are maintained in the village. There is infrastructure in the village that is “in need of repair, replacement and upgrades,” he said.

“And there is a lot going on that’s going to require solid infrastructure,” such as the St. Lawrence Health System development on U.S. Rt. 11, and finding a replacement for the McDonald’s restaurant on Main Street that has closed with the start of the new year.

The picture is not bleak, Dalton says, but he stresses that “development can’t happen if you don’t have water and sewer to support it.”

Dalton is an admitted “infrastructure guy,” in part due to his career with Verizon as a supervisor of contract construction for the company.

Dalton notes that the village’s sewage treatment facility is in good shape. Its capacity is more than sufficient for current needs.

It was built when the Kraft plant was making plenty of cheese and putting out plenty of liquid waste, and the company contributed to the treatment plant’s upgrade. But Kraft announced not long after that a company-wide operations review concluded that the Canton plant should close, and it did in 2004 after 50 years of operation, laying off 70 people, but leaving behind a big treatment plant.

“So the facility is relatively new and is in good shape, but everything that feeds that plant is old,” Dalton said.

Dalton is concerned about the aging sewer lines and other aging facilities.

They have to take care of “streets and everything else, of course, but it’s the things you can’t see that concern me.

“Someone who wants to expand or build and get annexed into the village will need this kind of infrastructure.

“The uplands water line is 100 years old. There’s plenty of water generally available,” he said, but “we’re concerned that in drought conditions supply will be tight.” And health authorities have said they would like to see another supply for the village to be available if required, he said.

“We’re waiting on an engineering report now for how we can supplement the water supply in closer to the village – a supplementary supply we can depend on.”

Over the years the village has sought a new source of water, most recently at the old Ideal Drive-In Theater site where the village and town will build a new solar array to supply electricity for municipal needs. A test well there turned up water, but it contained too much mineral content to be practical, Dalton said.

“We might have to go back to the river,” he said, but putting a “huge” retired river water treatment plant on Lincoln Street back into service would not be the best choice.

“It had got to a point in its life cycle where it needed an upgrade, and the uplands water was a better option. But we still need a supplemental source.

“If the engineering study supports the river option, new technology would allow for a much smaller footprint” than the Lincoln Street facility occupies now.

The old plant “had been restarted once, but it’s not likely to be used again.” The best that might happen there is finding a way to repurpose the structure in another way, Dalton said.

“Sustainability” is one of the key words at work in the village and in all of its plans, “in infrastructure and everything.”

Dalton is not new to village politics.

He and his wife Joyce, a medical office assistant, have been in Canton for 30 years, and they have have raised three children, two of whom remain in the Canton area, one as a nurse and another as a paramedic, and the other resides in Indianapolis, employed as a commercial airline pilot.

“I have been invested in village operations and government since I joined the fire department,” he said. He served as chief for five years, and his wife and children also served with Canton fire and rescue units.

He was appointed to the Board of Trustees three years ago to fill out the year left in Trustee Sylvia Kingston’s term when she stepped down, and was elected to a two-yar term in his own right the following year.

When Mayor Mary Ann Ashley announced that she would not seek another term as Canton mayor, Dalton, who was deputy mayor, stepped up to run and, unopposed, he won the seat last November.

He retired from his Verizon job after 37 years, but he says he keeps busy, and, especially in his government job, “there is always something to educate you.”