The villages of East Williston and Williston Park continue to inch toward finalizing their water-service agreement a month after they settled on its terms.
Williston Park’s Village Board approved a written agreement containing those terms Monday night and will send it to East Williston for review by Wednesday, Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar said.
East Williston Mayor David Tanner said Ehrbar told him recently there was no chance of Williston Park’s draft agreement changing any of the terms the villages’ trustees agreed to March 3.
Ehrbar said his board would send the agreement two weeks ago, but the five trustees were not able to discuss it together until this week, he said.
Williston Park Trustees Teresa Thomann and Michael Uttaro were not present at the villages’ public negotiation last month, and Trustee William Carr was injured and could not attend the Village Board meeting two weeks ago, Ehrbar said.
If East Williston trustees approve the draft, the village will send it to the Nassau County Department of Health to review its emergency chlorination plan, a sticking point in negotiations earlier this year.
Under the plan, East Williston will likely not have to build its own emergency chlorination system, as its Village Board worried in February.
Williston Park would chlorinate East Williston’s water in an emergency, such as contamination, to the extent it can without exceeding the maximum level of chlorine in its water supply.
Under normal circumstances, the health department would have required East Williston to provide its own emergency chlorination, but the department told the village in 2011 an agreement with Williston Park would suffice, trustees have said.
East Williston has maintained its own independent water supply system as an alternative to the agreement with Williston Park.
The Village Board plans to put out a $7.5 million bond referendum to let residents decide whether to build two wells and a supply tank at Devlin Field. Voting down the bond would effectively approve the agreement, village officials have said.
If the agreement is signed, East Williston would buy water exclusively from Williston Park for 25 years, with the current rate of $4.33 per thousand gallons locked until June 2018.
Any future rate hikes would have to maintain the ratio of East Williston’s rate to Williston Park’s residential rate, and East Williston officials would get to give input with Williston Park’s board before a public hearing on an increase.
Both villages would continue maintaining their own water infrastructure. East Williston would pay Williston Park $100,000 over the course of a year to settle existing lawsuits.
If East Williston wants to dispute a bill, Williston Park would get the full amount and hold the disputed amount in escrow while the villages settle the dispute within 60 days.
A clause indemnifies both villages for damages resulting from each other’s water systems as long as they maintain liability insurance policies.
