STONY POINT AND HAVERSTRAW AT ODDS OVER SEWERS, LEGOLAND; LAWSUIT FILED

BY CAROL MCILMURRAY

STONY POINT- Stony Point Supervisor Geoff Finn and town board members held a press conference on Tuesday Oct. 13 to announce a pending suit and requested court injuction to stop Haverstraw’s Joint Regional Sewerage Boards (JRSB) from terminating its agreement with Stony Point on Dec 31 of this year.

The action comes after the JRSB gave notice to Stony Point informing them residents would lose access to the Haverstraw-based sewer treatment infrastructure as of Dec 31, 2015. Local resident Frank Collyer, Stony Point is concerned. Collyer wonders, “ What happens on January 1, will I be able to fl ush my toilet?” “The Town has made extensive attempts to initiate discussion and those overtures have been ignored,” stated Town Supervisor Geoff Finn. “The JRSB knows fully well that in choosing to simply ignore the terms of our longstanding contract to provide services, they put the health and safety of Stony Point residents at risk.”

The assertion is Inter-Municipal Agreement, ratifi ed in 2005, refl ects an original 20- year term expiring in 2025 not 2015. Councilman White and other Stony Point offi cials publically asked if Haverstraw’s JRSB’s early termination of the contract was motivated in preparation for Legoland sewer hookups. White alleged the Town of Haverstraw and the JRSB want to turn off the sewers coming from Stony Point so they can have the capacity to support the sewage from Legoland.

When called for comment, Haverstraw Town Supervisor Howard Philips, who sits on JRSB replied, “Not true. Absolutely not true… This is an old deal made between Haverstraw Town Supervisor Rotella and Stony Point Town Supervisor Conklin…the term simply expires.”

“We won’t stand for our residents being threatened by elected offi cials in another town advancing their own agendas,” stated Councilman Jim Monaghan. “In addition to fi ling this injuction to protect our residents at this time, the Town of Stony Point will begin exploring options for the expansion and upgrading of our own systems with the goal of cutting us permanently from Haverstraw’s system on our own timetable.”

The JRSB agreement between the two towns has provided back up over-flow sewer treatment services to Stony Point and direct services for which JRDB directly bills certain residents that border the two towns. Stony Point’s present sewer processing plant has limited capacities to accommodate all sewer treatment services.

Termination of the agreement before Stony Point can make alternative arrangements will leave residents without a secondary source of sewer overfl ows during high usage periods. Stony Point was initially notifi ed in January of the JRSB intentions to terminate sewer service. Since that time, the Stony Point attorney has made a series of legal inquires and communications. Stony Point claims those inquires were ignored by the JRSB.