Newspapers and television news are overflowing with stories highlighting the impact of climate extremes. These stories show that many locations worldwide are severely suffering from a lack of water while others are drowning from too much.
It’s incredibly sad to see some areas devastated by flooding while others suffer from severe drought. We all pay the price for cleanup efforts or higher product prices, especially when crops are wiped out. While this corner of the world hasn’t been impacted as severely as some communities in other locales, some parts of Chautauqua seem to suffer from flooding annually, like Irving. Thankfully, most have been spared this far, but our time may be coming too.
Watching these events unfold should make us stop and think about what we would do if faced with severe water issues. We’ve already watched some local communities struggle with water woes. More often than not, especially when it comes to water distribution, they elect do so on their own. That’s usually because some communities insist on being independent. They want to manage their own water facilities.
Some believe they make money on water. Just take a peek at your water bill.
The money you pay should be used to maintain the water facilities, but some communities make more money on water than is needed, so they use the excess for other things too.
Other communities don’t make enough to cover their costs, so they have to raise consumer prices for water. Not surprisingly, when consumer and industrial water costs grow, officials end up fending off increasing complaints about the cost of essential utilities like water.
This often happens when large industries leave. It’s a cyclical pattern. Higher prices cause exits, and the subsequent loss of residents and businesses results in a more significant financial burden for those staying.
There are ways to work together to make water affordable for all. A number of local communities banded together in February of 2016 to form a regional water distribution system called the North County Water District. Creating an implementation plan took many years of municipal meetings, planning, and feasibility studies. This was funded through grants, the Chadwick Bay Regional Development Corporation, and Chautauqua County. As a result, the construction of new water mains, pumps, and water storage facilities will create a district system that will save money and provide security for the village of Brocton, the towns of Portland, Pomfret, Dunkirk, Sheridan, and the North County Industrial Water District.
It is expected to be complete by the end of 2022. The city of Dunkirk will function as the water supplier to the new system.
However, not all North County communities elected to participate in this new system. Hopefully, its success will motivate more to examine the total long-term cost of managing and maintaining their own water supply and this will lead them to decide to move out of their silos to do more collaborative work with their neighboring communities in the future.
Collaborative efforts like this one should be embraced by government officials and used as a model to lower other municipal and consumer costs. The Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation’s Local Economic Development committee strongly supports efforts like this because they attract and retain businesses and residents.
Collaboration is a win-win for everyone in Chautauqua County and around the world.
Patty Hammond is Economic Development Coordinator at the Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation. The Local Economic Development (LED) Initiative is a standing committee of the Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation. Send comments or suggestions to Patty Hammond at phammond@nccfoundation.org