Mount Kisco gets proactive about protecting Byram Lake Reservoir

MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. - Mount Kisco is tapping into some expert advice and help as it strives to proactively protect its precious water supply.

The village uses Byram Lake Reservoir as its primary source but also draws from four bedrock wells located at Leonard Park.

Mount Kisco is one of five volunteer communities in Westchester County – and 104 in the state -- currently participating in the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Drinking Water Source Protection Program.

Locally led and state supported, the initiative offers municipalities free technical assistance to develop and implement their own unique plans.

That help covers everything from stakeholder coordination and data interpretation to protection method identification and funding guidance.

Byram Lake covers about 158 acres, is fed by groundwater, and is situated in the towns of Bedford and North Castle. It was donated to Mount Kisco in the mid-1950s by the Meyer family.

It’s considered to be “finite” and “fragile” because its watershed is only about five times the size of its surface when common engineering practices say it should be about 20 times larger, noted Mayor J. Michael Cindrich, introducing a presentation on DWSP2 at the Village Board’s Monday, May 19 meeting.

Calling it “special,” Cindrich said that the reservoir has not been without its challenges, he said, referring to previous “draw” problems, concerns raised about the impact of a nearby private golf course, and road salt runoff from I-684, a state highway, and local roads.

Byram Lake’s H2O is filtered, disinfected with chlorine, and treated for corrosion control before it enters the distribution system. Well water -- which accounts for less than 10 percent of the supply, comes from an aquifer, and is supposedly considered supplemental – is not filtered but it is disinfected, aerated to remove radon, and treated for corrosion control.

The sources typically yield about 1.5 million gallons of water a day.

Both systems are operated by Veolia.

Also keeping an eagle eye on things environmental is the Byram Lake Reservoir Committee, which is made up of both village officials and private citizens.

The state program was brought to the village’s attention by Planning Board member William “Bob” Phillips, who learned about it while attending a New York Planning Federation’s conference in 2023.

The village applied and was accepted into the program.

The Village Board was brought up to date on the project by Phillips and Russell Urban-Mead, senior hydrogeologist at LaBella Associates, the engineering firm that monitors the reservoir and its tributaries. Urban-Mead is the state’s lead consultant for the DWSP2 project. Also involved is John Behan of Behan Planning + Design.

Step one was to form a “stakeholder committee” with members who had a diverse set of perspectives.

It included Cindrich, Village Manager Ed Brancati, Phillips, Veolia, the village’s water department, county planning and health officials, M. Patricia Lee and Peter Grunthal of the BLR Committee, Jamie Norris of the North Castle Highway Department, the Westchester Land Trust, and Kevin Winn, Bedford’s commissioner of public works.

The next task was to come up with a mission statement, namely that the village’s water supplies “continue to be sufficient, safe, and healthy to serve the needs of the community for both current and future generations.”

According to Urban-Mean, goals supporting that vision include continuing to protect and expand areas of conserved land in and around the water supply sources, to identify and adopt resiliency measures to address potential severe weather events and hazards such as flooding and droughts, to educate the public about the importance of protecting existing resources, and to enhance regulations and measures related to the water supply.

The committee then was charged with preparing a map of the “unusually small” catchment area and creating an inventory of potential sources of contamination, including “incidental” spills at homes and roads, unauthorized public access (trash and chemical, invasive species, power boats), and residential land uses (chemical, lawn care, and septic systems).

The watershed for the Leonard Park wells is “vastly larger,” Urban-Mead noted.

Naturally, the so-called “recharge area” contains “way more” potential contamination vectors such as residences and commercial enterprises. Also to be considered current, and historic, uses at Leonard Park, he said.

Plan component Number 3 was the putting together of a protection strategy and the development of an implementation timeline.

Part of the former involves working with the state Department of Transportation and towns on road salt management, managing new development in the watershed through land conservation effortsas well as careful and coordinated SEQRA project reviews.

Aquifer/watershed protection ordinances should be part of the thought process and public access to Byram Lake controlled through education, signage, a neighborhood watch, and increased police and DEC presences.

Strategies that were also important but a little less urgent, Urban-Mead said, included property owner education/outreach/planning, including about the use of chemicals/fertilizers at Leonard Park, and making sure that fire departments, the DEC, and the DOT are cognizant of the water supply when they respond to incidents.

A Plan Management Team was formed and a draft plan report put together by the stakeholder group and the village’s consultants and submitted to the state in April.

Now it must be reviewed by the DEC and state Department of Health for completeness.

Once it gets the state’s thumbs-up and is adopted by the village, the plan will be eligible for funding assistance.

It would ultimately be shepherded by the Plan Management Team.

Urban-Mead noted that there is the potential for continued, short-term, -- and state supported -- assistance from LaBella.

“Once you’re up and running, we fade away and you would have a New York state contact person just for awareness around the plan,” Urban-Mead said, adding that at some point it becomes the village’s plan and can be implemented to keep its water “secure and potable (drinkable) forever.”

Cindrich pointed out Monday that the village had invested millions into a filtration plant and if it didn’t think “the lake had life, we obviously wouldn’t have done that.”

'Forever Chemicals'

Trustee Tom Luzio asked Urban-Mean to address the issue of PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances which are known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment.

The state has implemented laws and regulations addressing PFAS, including bans on the chemicals in certain products and the establishment of “Maximum Contaminant Levels” in drinking water. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has set national, legally enforceable standards for PFAS as well.

Urban-Mead responded that Veolia had told him that the reservoir “is pretty much clear of PFOA/PFOS concerns” but there “are some trace detections” in the Leonard Park wells.

Part of the plan is to “try to track the sources of those down and see if there’s something one can do about that,” he added.

Luzio pressed for a further explanation.

Urban-Mead responded that because the wells only contribute about 20 percent of the water supply, the draft plan doesn’t go “into huge detail” on the subject of PFAS.

However, he could say that “the direction that the state and the federal government is going in in terms of regulatory threshold responses is an open question.”

Urban-Mead also noted that the state at present has “exerted more care” than the federal government.

PFAS are called “emerging contaminants” not because they’re new but because people are becoming more aware of them, he said.

It’s necessary to study the chemicals in order to arrive at a standard that is “protective of human health” without being “so excessive that it shuts down a use.”

Time is needed for regulators and the private sector to figure out remediation tactics.

It reminded Urban-Mead of when chlorinated solvents were regulated in the 1970s.

“No one knew what to do with them” at first, he said, adding that once folks started focusing on them, understanding of how to remediate and investigate their impact increased.

“I think we’re on the same path with some of these emerging contaminants” such as dioxin, PFOA, and PFOS, Urban-Mead said.

“Right now, we’re still trying to figure out how much it matters, how costly it is to investigate, how costly it is to remediate,” he said, adding that he thought that “in five to 10 years, we’re going to be in a very different spot because we’re going to understand all of those factors better.”

Luzio asked about the action plan’s lifespan.

Once turned over to the village, it’s intended to be “a living document,” Urban-Mead said, noting that one of the goals is to pay attention to new regulations, such as the ones regarding PFAS, and “adjust the plan as needed.”

Cindrich said that it could be less costly to find other sources that could be linked to the current filtration plant than to build separate facility for the Leonard Park wells.

“Russell, I think you were the one who told me that all water is good water?” he joked.

Urban-Mead credited a mentors who’d told him “wet water is better than no water.”

“And he was an engineer, he took the approach that if we could find a good source of water, there’s usually a way to treat it to make it potable.”