OBSERVER Photo Pictured is the Fredonia Village Hall.

Fredonia’s long-running water treatment plant project has suffered a significant setback, and the plant operator blames the engineer.

“The engineering and designing work and implementation, according to (plant operator) Chris (Surma) … is making it not possible to utilize the new clarifier properly and safely,” Village Trustee James Lynden stated at the Monday Board of Trustees workshop.

“The engineering company was talking about change orders and new engineering to make some changes to what they have installed to make it so that it may work,” he added. “I find great difficulty understanding why they would ask us to pay for anything more than that they were supposed to engineer and have work, up and running — at least one of (the clarifiers) by now. They haven’t even started the second one and they’re nearing the end of the extension that the board had agreed to.”

Lynden stated the village should not incur any more costs, then asked Surma to describe the issues.

“The engineers … said that the original contract that they signed has operational parameters that evidently were different than how we run the place, basically,” Surma said. “We went round and round today at a 2’o clock meeting. They agreed to construct a little more, do a little re-engineering. They didn’t agree that the operational concerns were their fault.

“They figured they designed it correctly and I disagree with them,” he added. “The moral of the story is, we are in a delay situation again.” Retrofits are set to take place but will be time consuming, he said.

Complete story in Wednesday’s edition.

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