Water

On Thursday I met with Bill Jensen of the Village Public Works office, to talk about our access to village water service. The Pleasant Ave. property has a water main which runs along the west boundary, with a fire hydrant. Bill told me we would have several options with bringing water to the garden:

1.    We could set up a stock tank for hand watering, and fill it ourselves by trucking in water which we could purchase at the Water Treatment facility on West Lake Rd.

2.    We can establish an account with Municipal Services, and there is a possibility that the Village would be able to fill a stock tank periodically from the hydrant, then charge us for the water. This would be a temporary measure at most while we work on a more permanent system.

3.    We could connect to the Village water, with a permanent watering system. The first step is hiring an engineer to design a system for us which would accommodate our needs. Then Public Works could approve this plan for us, and give us an estimate on the costs of a hookup, which would be kept to a minimum since we are a community-based group. The system would need a backflow prevention to prevent contamination, buried lines to prevent winter freezing, and some kind of protection for the metering and other equipment, which could be installed in our tool shed, or protected by a simple well head cover. The Village would be able to approve and supervise the work, but we would have to provide a licensed contractor to handle the installation.

Bill provided me with the current rate charged for Village water, which is $8.32 per 1,000 gallons. There is also an additional fee for "equivalent dwelling unit" (EDU). The fee for a single family residential unit is $12.00 per month, and this rate would increase if we would require a larger diameter feed for higher volumes of water.

We will need to provide more information about our site plan, including how far from the main the water will need to travel, how many hose bibs we will want and where they will go, and whether we will have multiple hoses running at the same time.