Cooper Lake. (Photo: Dion Ogust)
Bottled-water giant Niagara Bottling wants to build a massive purification and packaging facility near TechCity. The proposed plant would consume as much as 1.75 million gallons a day provided by the City of Kingston Water Department from the city’s Cooper Lake watershed.
Rumors about the proposal have circulated for months, but town and city officials wary that premature publicity could kill the deal have steadfastly declined to discuss it. That changed on Tuesday, Sept. 16 when a consulting engineer for the project made a presentation to the Town of Ulster Planning Board. The presentation is the first step in a State Environmental Quality Review Act process that project engineer Peter Romano said he hopes will be complete in time for construction to begin in early 2015.
“We hope we can get the SEQRA process rolling,” Romano told the board. “Technical reports, a number of studies are already underway.”
Romano said the California-based company had conducted an extensive search for a site to build a new bottling facility to serve some 25 million customers in the New York City and Boston metropolitan areas. (Currently the closest Niagara bottling plant is in Allentown, Pa.) Company officials settled on the Town of Ulster for its proximity to the state Thruway and existing industrial infrastructure.
The proposal calls for the construction of a 414,800-square-foot bottling facility on a 57 acre parcel on Boices Lane across from TechCity. The parcel, once part of IBM’s sprawling complex and owned by AG Properties of Kingston, LLC — also known as TechCity Properties — is already zoned for industrial use.
The site would also hold 29 tractor-trailer loading docks, 98 tractor-trailer parking spaces, 160 staff and visitor parking spots and 65-foot-high water silos adjacent to the building. Romano told the board that plans called for the plant to initially house a single production line. Within three to five years, though, the company hopes to expand to four production lines employing 120 people. Production would be split between filtered water purchased from the City of Kingston Water Department and spring water which would be trucked into the plant for processing and bottling. The plant would also produce plastic bottles using a heat mold and closed loop cooling process using recirculated water.
Running at full capacity, the plant would draw up to 1.75 million gallons from Kingston’s water system. The system, built in the early 20th century, is fed by Mink Hollow, a small stream in the Woodstock hamlet of Lake Hill. The stream in turn feeds the man-made Cooper Lake. From there, water is piped underground to a filtration plant on Sawkill Road, and then to a holding reservoir where it enters the city’s water mains. The system currently consumes about 3.5 million gallon each day, including about 700,000 gallons a day purchased by the Town of Ulster. Prior to its shutdown in the 1990s, Kingston provided about a million gallons a day to the IBM facility at a time when the city’s population was a few thousand more what it is today. Romano said initially, at least, the facility could run off existing infrastructure with the addition of two new water mains on Boices Lane. Romano said running the plant at full capacity, however, could require the construction of another 24-inch water main to run parallel to the existing one that brings water into the city from Cooper Lake. If needed, the new water line would be built at Niagara’s expense and follow the existing easements secured to construct the original system.
“We don’t anticipate a supply problem,” said Romano. “The issue will be conveyance.”
Kingston Water Department officials have already signed off on a “will provide” letter for the project. According to Town of Ulster Supervisor Jim Quigley III, the letter is not a formal agreement, but simply a statement that the city is capable of meeting the plant’s needs, providing that certain conditions are met. Romano meanwhile said that it was “way too early” to say what Niagara would pay for use of the city water. The Town of Ulster pays $2.82 per 1,000 gallons for use of the Kingston water system.
Another issue to be addressed in the SEQRA process will be traffic. The proposed plant, Romano said, would run 24 hours a day, 363 days a year. An estimated 260 trucks — or one every 10 minutes — would enter and leave the facility around the clock, each day. Romano said trucks would be routed directly onto Route 209 and the Thruway, avoiding residential neighborhoods. The traffic, he said, would be far less than that generated by the former IBM plant.
Following the presentation, the Planning Board voted unanimously to open a SEQRA action for the plant proposal and designate the town board as the lead agency in the review. Romano said that he hoped to have the process completed in time to begin construction in early 2015. The plant is expected to take about eight months to build.
You can’t drink money, Kingston.
[…] project appears to have been on the table for some time, and according to this week’s Kingston Times, in order to not “kill” the project they kept it under wraps until their presentation last […]
its acrime the water level is low as it is and it is fed by nature so it is not reliable to take from
NO!
What will happen if there is a drought? Will the Bottling Company be allowed to consume all of the water before Kingston residents? With New York City taking most of the water in the region, is it wise to let a big corporation entity take ours?
WILL GREED EVER STOP
DO YOU THINK THAT THE WATER SUPPLY IS AN LESS? WELL IF YOU DO WHY DON’T YOU LOOK UP AT THE SKY AND LOOK UP AT THE CHEM TRAILS AND LOOK UP THE FACT THAT THE WATER COMING DOWN ON US IS NOT WHAT IT WAS IN THE DAYS OF YORE.
LEAVE US ALONE!! LEAVE WOODSTOCK AND THE SURROUNDING AREAS ALONE!
YOU WANT TO MAKE MONEY YOU GOT IT WITH YOUR FRACKING!!
LEAVE US ALONE!!
YOU ARE PENNYWISE AND POUND POOR.
TOO MUCH OF OUR ENVIRONMENT IS BEEN SCREWED AROUND WITH. IT IS TIME TO STOP THIS INSANITY THAT’S GOING ON.
WATER IS NO LONGER AT LIMITLESS. WE NEED RAIN TO FILL OUR RESERVOIRS. IN ORDER TO GET RAIN WE NEED TO STOP THE CHEMTRAIL’S IN OUR SKIES REFLECTING THE SUNRAYS BACK OUT IN ORDER TO COOL THE EARTH OR SO THEY THINK WE ARE DESTROYING OUR FORESTS WE ARE DESTROYING OUR SOIL. WE ARE WE ARE KILLING EVERYTHING.
LIFE IS BECOMING NON SUSTAINABLE.
LOOK AROUND – LOOK AT THE DROUGHTS and WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE WEATHER PATTERNS.
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO YOU STOP THIS INSANITY?
ONE NEEDS NOT TO BE A ROCKET SCIENTIST TO SEE THAT THE ENVIRONMENT IS IN SERIOUS TROUBLE.
I SAY NO TO NIAGARA WATER!
I SAY NO TO IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION IN GETTING MONIES INTO THE HANDS OF THE POLITICIANS AND CORPORATIONS THAT REALLY DON’T CARE ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THIS PLANET.
For so many reasons a terrible terrible project. Water should not be privatized. Plastic bottles are a terrible curse in our society. To have a plastic manufacturing industry in Kingston will mean polluted air and many more floating islands of plastic in our oceans. Plastic bottles should be outlawed. But the worse thing is to in anyway endanger the beauty and purity of the lovely Cooper Lake. The deal with Kingston was NOT for industrializing and monetizing the pure resource we treasure. No business with water!!!
Deedee’s Telling the TRUTH, Bless her!
gee, it would be sad if the shopping centers ran out of water.
where is the public input, in an area where there is contention about every other water use? obviously the voters of the Town of Ulster don’t care, they should be the first line of protest!but it’s not their water.
p.s. to editor….all i read is the kdf. i wrote them a letter on this subject (based on their coverage), and fact checked a few things. in doing so i fell into your paper on line, ”news” to me, not being an on line person. wow….compared to your thorough coverage, my letter would have made me look foolish to anyone who knew the whole story.
tempting to subscribe, but honestly and ironically, there’s only so much i need to know about kingston, and dear wifey won’t give up the kdf….for the coupons!
i have witnessed the ghastly butchering of the kdf over the recent years, and used to write them privately about their choices. later from a newsman in mich. whos paper is also owned by the current kdf owners, i found out who and why the paper is the way it is….
a ”fake” local paper…..like ‘astroturf’ in politics.
i no longer live in town, but my interest in an alternative to kdf goes back to hugh’s try at it. can’t understand how so many competing papers survive in this county!
[…] Record (September 10th) and shortly after, making front page news in both the Daily Freeman and Kingston Times soon after. From the proposal presented by Peter Romano of the Chazen Company to the Town of Ulster […]
[…] Record (September 10th) and shortly after, making front page news in both the Daily Freeman and Kingston Times soon after. From the proposal presented by Peter Romano of the Chazen Company to the Town of Ulster […]
THE PRIVATIZATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES
PROFITING FROM GOLD,OIL,EVEN FOOD(LABOR)
IS ONE THING, WATER IS MUCH MORE
VALUABLE FOR EXISTENCE
I WOULD CARRY WATER IF NEED BE
WATER BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE
A GIFT OF THE EARTH
SHOULD BE MUNICIPAL PROJECT
IF AT ALL
RECIPIENTS OF WATER SHOULD BE TAXED
TO FUND THE PROJECT
I think we must take every effort to preserve and protect our planet. This bottling plant adds to the fossil fuel impact by producing even more unnecessary plastic bottles, and why in times of world drought we looking to sell our water? With Fracking the citizens were provided with a pretty picture of how their their lives would be bettered, The reality turned to a disaster. We are destroying nature, and it is time to act as protectors to our world. Yes , Kingston needs industry and jobs. However these jobs need to be for things that improve our local. Water mining does not seem an appropriate choice.
[…] located 15 minutes from Mount Tremper and 20 minutes from Phoenicia. Cooper Lake, which has been in the news quite a lot these days due to the proposed Niagara water bottling plant that would draw from the […]
Wake up ! Stand up! Unite People ,we are under attack, these political parasites won’t even give an answer when asked about the constant chemical/ poison attacks on us when asked ,
The list of TOXINS that are being sprayed on YOU ,& YOUR CHILDREN reads like a science fiction horror story ……..only it’s TRUE,
The U.S.Gov‘t. & MILITARY have declared war on WE, The PEOPLE, &are waging chemical/ biological war on us as you read this …..
They won’t stop unless forced to,…………
Anyone involved in this atrocity should be indicted, arrested, ajudicated & imprisoned.