WESTERLO — The public raised concerns about contamination of the the town’s water with bromomethane at Westerlo’s town board meeting last Tuesday.

From the gallery, resident Diane Sefcik questioned why the town had not notified residents about the contamination when it was first discovered this January and February. Only residents of the water district were notified in March; the town board discussed the matter at its August meeting when talking about efforts made by the town’s grant-writer, Nicole Ambrosio, to secure a grant to filter the water.

The public water system, built in 2005 for about a million dollars, serves about 90 residents and businesses in the Westerlo hamlet.

At the Sept. 4 meeting, Anita Marone said from the gallery that further information was only added at the meeting following Sefcik’s inquiry.

“We are adults, we live here, we deserve to be notified of this situation,” Sefcik said.

In January and February of this year, sampling of the town water found bromomethane levels of 12 parts per billion in the water; the state’s Department of Health has set a standard of 5 parts per billion being acceptable in drinking water. However, the health department had stated that the water is safe for drinking, cooking, and bathing.

“The short-term exposure to this chemical at the levels detected in the water supply does not constitute an immediate health hazard,” Erin Silk, a state health department spokeswoman, told The Enterprise last month, adding that long-term exposure of many years is a higher concern.

Ambrosio told the board last week that she was still waiting for information for a grant that would fund at least 60 percent of the cost of filtering the town’s water. Town code enforcement officer Edwin Lawson said that the levels of bromomethane had been continually decreasing, and so the consulting engineering firm is still deciding if a filter is necessary, and will do so following a final test; the last test was conducted the week prior.

Last month, Lawson had noted that the main concern had been discovering the source of the contamination, which he suspected was from a reaction with another contaminant and the chlorine treatment of the drinking water.

Lawson told the board last week that it was thought informing the public would cause a panic; the levels of bromomethane had been determined to not be dangerous by the health department. He also said that he and other town officials had not been immediately notified due to a “disconnect” between the facility and the town following the resignation of William Bichteman from the water board after he was not re-elected to the town board last year.

The September discussion brought up concerns about the actions of the town’s water board, which Lawson said meets twice a year at its convenience. The three-member water board, he said, had not yet met this year in order to choose a new chairman after Bichteman left the role.

“They’re just overseeing and trying to take care of the rates system,” said Lawson. “They’re not taking care of anything else.”

Lawson said that he and Highway Superintendent Jody Ostrander have since overseen some items at the facility.

Westerlo resident Leonard Laub praised Lawson from the gallery for “stepping in” after Bichteman’s resignation, but added that it underlines the problem that no one has been appointed to head the water board or the district. Laub asked that the town board reinstate the monthly water-district reports that had been given at last year’s town board meetings.

Members of Westerlo’s fire department also had questions regarding Bichteman’s absence. Because Bichteman had been notified when alarms about water-pressure changes at the facility were set off, the fire department contacted him when using fire hydrants in town. Lawson suggested that the firefighters call the town supervisor or his assistant, but said that the alarms aren’t set off as easily now.

In her report on grant-writing, Ambrosio also said that a “scoping meeting” would be held at the highway garage in which a state-funded analysis of the garage’s energy use will take place in order to move forward with applying for a grant to fund repairs there. Residents had voted down an earlier proposal that would have replaced the run-down highway garage. The walk-through is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 14 at 10 a.m.