ALTAMONT – With an eye toward the future, trustees here unanimously  authorized Barton and Loguidice, the village’s engineer, to complete and submit a grant application for partial funding to connect Altamont to Guilderland’s water supply for emergencies.

“It’s a sign of the times that water has become very dear,” Trustee Dean Whalen said. “Long-term it may – unfortunately – prove to be prudent to position the village to have been very savvy,” 15 or 50 years before it’s necessary.

At last month’s village meeting, the board authorized $17,000 for Barton and Loguidice to study the proposed interconnection project, but held back $6,000 for completion and submittal of the grant application because it did not want to commit the village to such an expensive project on such short notice.

The proposed project would involve installing a pump station and running about 6,000 feet of waterline from Guilderland’s nearest water connection at the intersection of routes 146 and 158, near Phillips Hardware Store, along Route 146 to Armstrong Drive.

Brad Grant, of Barton and Loguidice, at the May 1 meeting offered a rough estimate of $850,00 to $900,000 for the project; $600,000 for the waterline and an additional $250,000 to $300,000 for a pump station.

The village would be responsible for the entire cost of the project, which would need to be bonded, and would then be reimbursed by the state.

The village currently gets its municipal water from wells. It also owns a reservoir in the town of Knox, which used to supply village water but it is no longer used.

Mayor Kerry Dineen at the June 5 meeting said that she expected to receive state funding for 60 percent of the project’s cost and would look to fill the remaining gap with other sources. She said there is a good possibility that the village would receive the grant because it has yet to connect to other municipalities’ water supplies.

Dineen also said that grant opportunities would not be available next year.

The state has been generous handing out funds, Grant said at last month’s meeting.

He pointed out that Guilderland had been successful on more than one occasion in obtaining grant money, and, now the town has interconnection with Albany, Bethlehem, Voorheesville, and just last year with Rotterdam.

For Guilderland’s interconnection with Rotterdam, Grant said that the town applied for an Intermunicipal Water Infrastructure Grants, which would have covered about 40 percent of the $4 million project, but it was the state that determined the project was eligible for 60-percent reimbursement.

Grant, at last month’s meeting, said there was little reason to believe that the village would not receive a 60-percent reimbursement.

Also at the June 5 meeting, Jeffrey Moller, the village’s superintendent of Public Works, said new sidewalks will be installed on Grand Street from Main Street to Fairview Avenue. Moller said the project will begin in the next few weeks.

The board also set a public hearing for July 17 to authorize the purchase of a 2018 Ford F-150 truck.