Commercial Customer Guidance

The “New York State on PAUSE” executive order issued by Governor Cuomo due to COVID-19 has resulted in many large commercial buildings, businesses, and government facilities with little to no occupancy for weeks.  These include schools, offices, hotels, medical facilities, restaurants, and health clubs etc.  This inactivity results in stagnant water that can allow chlorine to drop to undetectable levels.  Chlorine is used in the Kingston Water Department’s water system to ensure that there is no regrowth of biofilms that could contain Legionella and other potentially harmful bacteria. Long periods of stagnation in building water systems with no chlorine residual can allow the growth of harmful bacteria, and can cause leaching of metals from pipes, leading to discolored water or elevated lead levels. 

Property owners are responsible for maintenance of their internal plumbing systems to ensure water quality does not degrade. If your building, or sections of it, have been unoccupied for an extended period, the City urges you to take action to ensure that water is safe to use when normal building use resumes.  Prior to re-occupancy, consider developing a Water Quality Mitigation Plan for your building.

Every building plumbing system is unique, so it will be important to consider the design of your plumbing system when developing a mitigation plan.  There are several resources available to use to develop a plan.  Please consider using the resources below to develop a plan to ensure your building’s water system is safe:

• USEPA Guidance: https://www.epa.gov/coronavirus/information-maintaining-or-restoring-water-quality-buildings-low-or-no-use
• CDC guidance: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/building-water-system.html
• Water Research Foundation’s Flushing Guidance: https://www.waterrf.org/system/files/resource/2019-05/4572.pdf

• The Purdue University Center for Plumbing Safety rapid response study: https://engineering.purdue.edu/PlumbingSafety/covid19/faq-building-water-safety
• The Environmental Science, Policy & Research Institute (ESPRI) roadmap for flushing contaminants from buildings: https://esprinstitute.org/coronavirus-building-flushing-guidance/

The KWD will continue to do to keep you informed of any further developments concerning your water supply.  Please do your best to keep yourself, your employees, and customers safe and healthy.  Please call us at 845 331-0175 if you have questions. 

Sincerely,

                                                                                    The Kingston Water Department                                                                                                                                         

NOTICE:

The Board of Water Commissioners and Mayor Steve Noble recognize the financial strain that many of our residents are under as a result of the Covid-19 Emergency.  Therefore, they have waived the 10 percent penalty on all water and sewer bills for the period of April 7, 2020 through June 9, 2020.  They will re-evaluate and consider a possible extension of the waiver at their next meeting on June 10^th.  The waiver is ONLY for the 10% penalty for the late payment of those bills that are due during that period and does not impact the actual charges for water and sewer use.  Those amounts cannot be waived. 

The Board of Water Commissioners and Mayor Noble hope that by waiving the penalties on water and sewer bills during this difficult time, it will assist those in our community that are struggling financially and need time to catch up when this crisis is over.  This waiver does not apply to any bills that were due and payable prior to April 7, 2020. 

New Pay your Water bill online**

You can now pay your water bill on line with a debit or credit card.  Click on above link to the website.
Visa, MasterCard & Discover accepted.                             

(Please Note:  Additional fees will be included for this payment option)

OR Sign up for Electronic Funds Payment Option and have your payment automatically deducted from your checking or savings account.  No more late fees. No more due dates to keep track of. (No additional fees for this payment option) EFT Form

 Rules &Regulations_for_KWD.pdf

2019 Budget:    2019_Budget.pdf

2020 Budget:    2020_Budget.pdf

ORGANIZATIONAL RULES FOR WATER BOARD Organizational_Rules_for_Water_Board_Meetings.pdf

Click here for recorded Board Meetings

Please remember:  Water is precious - Please do not waste it!!!

The City of Kingston Water Department was founded on May 27, 1895 by a special act of the New York State Legislature to provide potable water to the residents of the City of Kingston. It is a financially and administratively independent department within the City of Kingston and is governed by the Board of Water Commissioners. The Board is a continuously sitting body and each member is appointed to a five (5) year term by the Mayor. The Mayor is a voting member of the Board.

The current members of the Board include:

• Steve Noble, Mayor
• Dennis Croswell, President               
• Robert Niedzielski
• Joanne Seche
• Margaret Gruner

Among other responsibilities, the Board sets Department policy and establishes all rules and regulations which it deems essential to the protection of the public interest in the management of the Water Department as defined by the Kingston City Charter. The daily operation is under the direction of Superintendent Judith Hansen. As a financially independent Department, all revenues received from water rents and other related activities remain within the Department to fund its operation. The sales of water accounts for approximately 95% of the Department's revenue and no revenues are received from Federal, State, or local taxes. The Board establishes all water rates and approves all expenditures and the Department currently operates on an annual budget of $5,071,800.00. Copies of the current rate schedule are available by contacting the Water Department and here on our web page.

System Overview 
Source: The Mink Hollow Stream is the principal source of Kingston's Water. With its headwaters in the Catskills, near Tannersville, NY, the water is of excellent quality. This 8.6 square mile watershed is largely undeveloped and sparsely populated and approximately half of the watershed is under the jurisdiction of the Catskill State Park. Significant portions of this watershed are owned and managed by the City of Kingston and, in this way, we are able to exert direct control over the quality of this resource.

Water from the Mink Hollow Stream is piped into the Cooper Lake Reservoir. Located in Lake Hill, New York, Cooper Lake is Kingston's principal raw water storage reservoir, containing some 1.2 billion gallons of water. From Cooper Lake, water flows to our Edmund T. Cloonan Water Treatment Plant via a system of cast iron transmission mains.

Treatment: The Edmund T. Cloonan Water Treatment Plant was constructed in 1899 and has a nominal capacity of 8 million gallons per day. Treatment consists of Chlorine disinfection, direct-in-line filtration with alum coagulation, and corrosion control via the addition of lime. Although various improvements have been made to this facility, it runs essentially as it was designed and still provides for the needs of our customers. A series of improvements are currently underway that will ensure the Plant continues to serve our community well into the next century.

The Laboratory of the Kingston Water Department is located on the second floor of the Plant and is certified by the New York State Health Department for the bacteriological examination of water. Routine monitoring of various physical and chemical parameters also occurs in the lab. For a modest fee, the lab is open to the public for the microbiological examination of water.

Distribution: Water is piped from the Treatment Plant to the Binnewater Reservoir, our primary storage facility. Located in the Town of Ulster, it contains 12 million gallons of treated water and acts to stabilize pressure gradients on the conduits entering the City. From this Reservoir, three cast iron transmission mains carry water into the City of Kingston. Within the City, there are approximately 100 miles of water mains and nearly 900 hydrants. The system has been evaluated by the Insurance Service Office (ISO) of New York and has received a Class 4 fire insurance rating. There are some 8,500 service connections and the average daily flow is about 3.5 million gallons per day.

Water Quality: The quality of Kingston's water is excellent. It is a low alkalinity, low hardness product with virtually no color or odor and little turbidity. It has no discernible tastes and odors. Like all public water supplies, it is closely monitored by the New York State Health Department and the Ulster County Health Department and meets all applicable EPA and New York State Health Department Standards. Copies of the water quality analyses are available by contacting the Kingston Water Department.