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Town Board votes in resolution to support county-wide biosolids ban
DELMAR — Bethlehem Town Board members voted unanimously to approve a source water protection plan at a meeting of the board on Wednesday, April 23.
Board members also unanimously adopted a resolution urging Albany County to extend and make permanent its previously imposed 90-day moratorium on the application of biosolids and biosolid-derived fertilizers in the county because they may contain contaminants that get into drinking water.
The biosolid resolution
According to the resolution, its adoption provides another path to keeping the town’s drinking water safe and preventing potential contaminants from entering the water source. The Vly Creek Reservoir, one of the town’s main water sources, lies within the town of New Scotland, outside town boundaries and its jurisdiction. Therefore, only a countywide biosolid ban can safeguard it.
The resolution states that the town “firmly opposes” the use of biosolids and biosolid-derived fertilizers without further knowledge of their content and origin and urges the adoption of a permanent countywide ban. It also asks the state Department of Environmental Conservation to strengthen testing requirements to ensure all biosolids do not contain high levels of heavy metals, PFAS, or other contaminants.
In February, the town had considered adopting its own ban on biosolid applications within town limits as part of ongoing efforts to safeguard its drinking water.
That proposal followed concerns over possible biosolid contamination at Vly Creek Reservoir, which supplies drinking water to Bethlehem and New Scotland town residents. In February, the town learned that a New Scotland farmer applied the sludge as fertilizer to a field about two-thirds of a mile from the reservoir last spring. Recognizing the interconnection of water issues among jurisdictions, the town has now opted to throw its weight behind a countywide ban.
“I think we landed in a great spot with this resolution,” said Town Board member Maureen Cunningham.
Town of New Scotland Supervisor Douglas LaGrange attended the meeting to show his town’s support for the biosolid resolution. “I support the ban throughout the state and support the county’s moratorium,” LaGrange said. He said the Town of New Scotland had not had sufficient time to pass its own resolution in support of the county moratorium.
LaGrange said, given that New Scotland and Bethlehem share a water source at the Vly Creek Reservoir and “because it’s the right thing to do,” he has spoken with Bethlehem Town Supervisor David VanLuven about the biosolid issue and preventing the use of more biosolids near the watershed. “My concern is what can be done in the watershed area, not allowing any more biosolids to be spread,” LaGrange said.
He suggested more education for farmers and people who rent farmers’ fields about the hazards posed by biosolids. “Because the EPA says they’re OK, they are unaware of the dangers when they put it on,” LaGrange said.
Board adopts watershed protection plan
After four years of development since November 2021 and in the face of deluging issues raised concerning the town’s drinking water’s safety, the Town Board listened to a presentation by state Department of Health technical assistance providers Madeline Silecchia and Alyssa Bement to adopt a watershed protection plan. Relying on a PowerPoint, Silecchia and Bement highlighted potential areas of contamination and strategies recommended to prevent contamination. Bement said the 132-page plan can also help reduce treatment costs.
The plan grew out of the Drinking Water Source Protection Program, a locally led, state-supported program that helps municipalities to improve and protect their water sources.
The state health department approved the plan in March 2025. “The best way to treat contaminants is to keep them out of your water, and that’s what this plan aims to do,” said Town Public Works Commissioner Paul Penman, who also spoke on behalf of the plan. “This plan aims at giving us strategies to do so.”
The plan’s purpose is to protect the town’s drinking source water by preventing pollutants from entering the town’s drinking water supply and its surrounding environment. Source waters are the streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs and groundwater from which the water is taken for drinking purposes.
The plan was developed by a town-established “stakeholders group” and in concert with the state health department. That formative group was originally composed of 11 individuals representing the town and specific fields of expertise, including Cunningham, VanLuven, Town Open Space Coordinator Lauren Axford, Town Chief Water Treatment Plant Operator Dave Blenis, and Town Planning Board member Rad Anderson. Albany County Department of Health Director of the Division of Environmental Health Maxwell Ferris, New Scotland Town Supervisor Doug LaGrange, and Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy Executive Director Mark King also sit on the group.
Bement and Silecchia outlined the areas of concern identified by the group, and five recommended strategies to safeguard the town’s water sources. Those water sources include the Vly Creek Reservoir and groundwater from two wells located in the town of New Scotland and groundwater from 11 wells and three infiltration galleries located along the Hudson River in Bethlehem. Both Bement and Penman emphasized that no Bethlehem drinking water is drawn directly from the Hudson River.
Although the plan concludes that the town’s “drinking water sources are of the highest quality,” it generically identifies five potential contaminant risks, including land use in the source water areas, nutrient loading from agricultural activities, fertilizer and septic system leaks, nutrient loading from landowner activities, potential risk and erosion caused by trespassers around the reservoir, and regulated potential contaminant sources, like nearby facilities. However, it stated there are few industrial sources of contamination near Bethlehem’s drinking water sources.
The plan, which is intended as a guideline for water source protection, is also intended to cut water treatment costs, increase community confidence in their drinking water, and strengthen community partnerships. Silecchia said data and information such as watershed rules and regulations, town well log data, state health department data, and community knowledge were relied on to determine the plan’s action items.
As outlined in the plan and discussed by state health department representatives, the chief recommended strategies include land acquisition and conservation easements around the water source, partnership efforts to promote agricultural best management practices, outreach and education to landowners and farmers in sensitive areas, reduction of trespassing activities, and managing any regulated potential sources inside the water protection areas. It also suggested expanded monitoring to provide early warning of the presence of emerging contaminants.
The plan is available for review on the town’s website.
Recent town water problems
Most recently, as reported by Spotlight News, five chemical compounds found earlier in Bethlehem’s Vly Creek Reservoir and New Scotland Well 2 are the same as those found in a biosolids product provided by a Massachusetts-based manufacturer that the state Department of Environmental Conservation last week confirmed had provided the material spread on farmland about two-thirds of a mile from the reservoir. The source protection plan did not specifically address the February 2025 biosolid discovery. However, in one section, the plan noted that the reservoir is fed by rain, water diverted by pipe from the nearby Onesquethaw Creek watershed, and below-ground seepage from upslope regions. In a separate section, the plan described the Vly Creek Reservoir watershed area’s hydrogeological setting as having areas of karst topography that “can lead to an unpredictable transportation of contaminants, which can be a concern for groundwater quality.”
The plan also references but does not specifically address the town’s fall 2024 issues with water smell and taste that have been ascribed to a late-season algal bloom in the Vly Creek Reservoir. It does, however, state that the water sources have been tested and remain safe to drink and comply with federal and state safety standards.
At the meeting, Town Board member David DeCancio asked whether the town’s water issues last fall had been accounted for in the plan’s conclusions. Penman said some of the issues had been vetted up to a month before the state health department approved the plan and that none of those issues contradicted the approach being taken in the proposed plan.
DeCancio also asked Silecchia and Bement whether any other New York state communities had experienced water contamination from the application of biosolids and if so, what was done about it. They were unable to answer the question and promised to find out. DeCancio then asked whether the proposed plan provides a plan of action if the watershed is already contaminated. Bement said the plan considers contamination before it gets to a source and does not address post-contamination treatment.
Cunningham stepped into DeCancio’s questioning and said, “What’s in the water is in the water and it’s being treated by the water plant.” She said this plan looks at other strategies, such as adding vegetation, revising applicable codes, and buying land. Bement then suggested the town follow up with the county health department if the water source is already contaminated.
After the meeting, DeCancio said he was unsatisfied with Silecchia and Bement’s response to his question about watershed contamination from biosolids in other communities. “We want to know how to protect this water,” DeCancio said. “We’re thawing out now, so what’s coming? Will we see a surge?” He added, “People need reassurance, and we want to know the water is safe.”
He said he has been told that the water is safe, and he believes it is.
But he also said that Bement’s response that the plan does not deal with any existing contamination raises a question as to how valid the action items are “if they don’t include the biosolid presence and they didn’t say they did.”
Planning next steps
In the meantime, a plan management team has been designated to oversee the plan’s implementation and to generate and share progress reports with the community. That team will include town employees, a New Scotland town representative, as well as an Albany County Health Department official, as needed.
Initial costs of implementing the plan were estimated in the plan document at around $15,000, plus the price of any purchased land. The town plans to apply for any potential funding source listed in the report.
Some steps are recommended to begin immediately, such as addressing possible trespassing at the reservoir, and other actions may take one to three years to complete. Penman reported that outreach to landowners to gauge interest in surrendering development rights or selling off land near the watershed to the town has already begun.
VanLuven supported the plan. “The best way to keep our water clean is to stop things from getting into it in the first place,” he said. “We can use the plan to take action and move from ideas to implementation.”
Cunningham noted that the town’s water, like all other states and counties, is under constant threat from pollution, emergent contaminants, and climate change. “Anything we put on land is going to end up in somebody’s water, whether it’s a drinking water source or a recreational water source, it will end up in water.”
She said planning, strategizing, and special mapping of the water and what is around it is critical.
“I think what we’re doing here is the right thing and it’s a forward-looking plan, which is what we need to do, not just in Bethlehem but in every community.”
Cunningham added that the plan is not a cure-all, but that she was happy to “support this plan because it’s a step forward and it is a foundation we can continue to build on.”
DeCancio urged the board to be proactive and acknowledge if there are issues so they can be solved.
“This is not an issue we are going to put down and be done with because we always have to drink water,” Town Board member Tom Schnurr said.
