By CRAIG FREILICH

CANTON -- After a years-long search, the village might finally have discovered a new source of fresh water that would ease supply concerns if a drought should hit, and it could be in service in a year.

Mayor Michael Dalton said that if it proves to be worthwhile it could be producing water for the village “a year from now.”

A promising test well behind St. Lawrence Health System’s E.J. Noble building, 80 E. Main St., could replace or supplement the century-old “upland” system of wells around Waterman Hill.

Mayor Dalton said preliminary pump tests and quality tests are offering significant hope that the village will have a replacement closer to town than the six miles to the existing source.

If the tests are successful, the new water source could also aid business and residential development in the village, said village Development Director Leigh Rodriguez.

Next Steps

Dalton says the next step is “drilling a production well once St. Lawrence University and the village agree on control of the property.” Dalton said he is happy with the cooperation the university is offering.

The state Department of Health officials say they will be looking at the progress and will eventually approve or deny Canton’s application for certification of the well.

The Health Department will take several samples for analysis that will look for the presence of any of dozens of potential contaminants and anything else that might reveal the water to be below drinking water standards.

Testing will continue, and before the preliminary work is done, first a 6-inch and then an eight-inch test well will be dug. The eight-inch well will add expense but is needed to test volume, a necessary part of the process, "and we have enough confidence to proceed."

Once those tests are done "we go into the design phase and then construction,” Dalton said.

And the question of finance will have to be addressed when they get closer to building the project.

"It's very possible by next year we could be developing that source. A year from now we could be in production."

Vital for Development

The project could be vital to further development of the Maple Hill tract along Gouverneur Street, which is not yet served by village water and sewer service.

Community Bank has built its administrative building there and the rest of the land has been subdivided into 34 house lots, only a few of which have houses on them so far.

Community Bank now "has its own well by they are having problems treating the water. We're actively looking at options to get water over there. We're looking at options," Dalton said. “We certainly don't want to see 75 jobs leave the community.”

The best options at the moment appear to be bringing it in through Commerce Park or maybe by way of a line out Rt. 11, he said.

Community Bank, which has 75 employees at their building, has expressed a desire to expand to Rodriguez.

She said the property “is large enough to accommodate an expansion. If they want to continue to grow, we should support this, to make the expansion possible, and we need to get the infrastructure there to get that going.”

In addition, she said, there is room there for new housing “for more people coming in. Any opportunity to add to the tax base we have to look at. We don’t want that to limit development there. The potential for the tax base is too great.”

Searching for Years

The village’s search for a new water supply goes back years.

Former Canton Mayor Charlotte Ramsay said in 2009 one of her top priorities then was looking for and developing new sources of water for the village, which remains for the moment an unfulfilled goal.

She said then the village was “nearing use capacity of the current sources on Waterman Hill.” She said they wanted to find something closer to the village.

Since then the exploration has taken them from the SUNY Canton and St. Lawrence University campuses in earlier tests, and more recently to the old Ideal Drive-In outside of town. But a test well there showed that salinity was too high to economically to treat the water.

There is the means to tap into the Grasse River as the village has done before, but other options are being explored first.

“The uplands water line is 100 years old. There’s plenty of water generally available,” Dalton said in a January interview, 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 might have to go back to the river,” he said, but putting the “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,” he said.

The old river plant “had been restarted once, but it’s not likely to be used again. But if the engineering study supports the river option, new technology would allow for