Water Department :: Village of Saugerties

Water Department

Description: This page covers the Village of Saugerties Water Department, its services and activities.

Responsibilities: Our goal is to provide safe, clean drinking water that meets or exceeds the standard, while protecting our resources, offering exceptional customer service and being fiscally responsible for both the Village and Town of Saugerties.

Hours/Contact: Plant hours are 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. For after-hours water emergencies, please contact the Saugerties Police Department at 845-246-9800.

See the grey box on this page for contact information for billing inquiries and water department heads.

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Please note: In Saugerties, when you are trying to get answers to questions you might have about your water service, the appropriate contact for you will either be the Village Water Department or the Town Water Department. In general:

If you live in the Village (see map if uncertain), your water questions should go to the the Village Water Department clerk (see grey box on this page). One "quirk" to be aware of is that the Village water department services residences on Route 212, from the at-grade railroad track crossing near Beer Universe to Smokehouse of the Catskills (North Woods Jeep Trail turn-off).
If you receive municipal water service and are a resident of Malden, Glasco/Barclay Heights or Kings Highway (Route 212 to Markertek), you are looking for the Town of Saugerties Water Department. For the Town of Saugerties Water Department, please click here.

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Watershed/Reservoir: The Village of Saugerties watershed is one of the best water supplies in the Northeast. It has four main streams that flow into the Blue Mountain Reservoir. They are:

The Plattekill
The Cotton
The Lucaskill
The Manorville.

There are many small streams and springs that flow down from the great Catskill Mountains. The watershed area is approximately 17 square miles.

Under the reservoir is an aquifer that covers approximately 7,000 acres. The daily flow over the dam is about five million gallons per day. The capacity of the reservoir is about three million gallons. This accounts for the Village of Saugerties having always had a constant and ample supply of water, even when other communities in the area might be experiencing a drought situation.

Programs/Activities:

In 1997, The Village of Saugerties Mayor and Village Board, together with consultants Wayne Debrosky and Joseph Waters (Brinnier & Larios Engineers, and the Ulster County Health Department (UCHD) developed a plan, over a five-year period, to upgrade the Village's water treatment plant and water distribution system. The reason for these upgrades were to ensure an adequate and safe supply of quality potable water; upgrade ageing or technically obsolete plant equipment, and to ensure the Village's continued compliance with all Federal and State regulatory requirement and/or regulations.

There are many facets of this plan, too numerous to cover here. The most important improvement made to the Village's distribution system was made in 2000. Construction started in Spring 2000 on a new three million gallon water storage tank off of Blue Mountain Road.

Construction continued until November 2000, when the new storage tank was put online. This increased the storage capacity of the Village's system by 2100%, enhanced fire protection for Village and Town residents, provided storage for over three days of average usage by system users, and allowed plant operators to shut down the water filtration plant during emergencies and for routine maintenance.

Through the efforts of the Village of Saugerties and their engineers and consultants, Standard Construction, and the Ulster County Health Department, the Village has a state of the art water filtration plant that will serve its users for many years into the future. These upgrades were made possible using a five-year plan to coordinate and schedule the various project stages, production and construction schedules, and communications with state regulatory agencies.

Village Water (and Sewer) Rates:

Village Water/Sewer Department Portal (with Online Payment Feature):

The button-image link to the Village Water/Sewer Department Portal is:

Or in text form, it is:

https://vosws.authoritypay.com/ (Registration and sign-in required.)

Keep in mind that this is the Village Water Bill Payment Portal. (For the Town Water Bill Payment Portal, click here.) If you are confused about whether you are paying a Village Water Bill or a Town Water Bill, please scroll upwards on this page and read the yellow highlighted explanation. If you've received a paper bill in the mail, that bill will also indicate whether the water bill is a Village or a Town bill.

All Village water and sewer customers can use the portal to :

View their usage
Make payments
Enroll in ebills
Enroll in autopay with bank information
View/print previous bills
Access Water Department documents

Water Quality:

The 2023 (and 2022 and 2021, for year-to-year comparisons) Water Quality Reports for the Village of Saugerties are available as downloadable PDFs in the "Documents" section below.

Personnel:

Dave Dunn, Plant Operator
Billy Voerg, Plant Operator
Fred Carney, Water Distribution

Village of Saugerties Water Department Makes News:

The Village of Saugerties Water Department was featured in an article in the August 2021 issue of a national magazine (Municipal Sewer and Water). You can read an article about it and download/view the magazine by clicking here.

Links: