Saratoga County water sales look to reach 1 million gallons a day soon

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

The county Water Authority expects to soon achieve a new benchmark, delivering more than 1 million gallons of water a day to customers.

The authority began operating its newly constructed $67 million water system between Moreau and Malta last winter and is now seeking to build a customer base.

Currently, it is delivering 800,000 gallons a day to the towns of Clifton Park and Wilton, and it expects to soon be delivering another 450,000 to 500,000 gallons a day to the town of Ballston and to the GlobalFoundries computer chip plant, authority officials said.

“We’re getting there,” said Water Authority Chairman John E, Lawler, R-Waterford, referring back to the four-year struggle to get the authority off the ground.

He said the authority can start delivering a contractual minimum of 150,000 gallons a day to the town of Ballston as soon as a final contract is signed.

“Certainly within the next 30 days,” Lawler said Thursday.

Meanwhile, the authority board is reviewing a contract under which the authority would directly provide about 300,000 gallons a day to the GlobalFoundries computer chip plant construction site in Malta.

“They would like to buy directly from us. We’re eager to sell to them,” Lawler said.

GlobalFoundries would get delivery through a new pipeline that links its factory to a newly built water tank on the Stillwater side of the Luther Forest Technology Campus. That tank is the southern endpoint of the authority’s system.

Water Authority Executive Director William Simcoe said the 5-million-gallon storage tank is now filled and undergoing final testing. It could be in service within a couple of weeks, as soon as the state Health Department approves, he estimated.

Once that tank is in service, the authority could start delivering water to the GlobalFoundries site. The site now gets its water from a private company, Saratoga Water Services.

The construction site is using about 300,000 gallons a day, but once the chip plant goes into full operation in 2012, it is expected to use about 3.1 million gallons a day.