The ceremony was held at Westchester Joint Water Works complex at 900 Lake St. in West Harrison instead of the Rye Lake project site on Purchase Street due to logistical reasons. Jaine Elkind Eney, chairperson of the Board of Trustees for the Westchester Joint Water Works, presided over the ceremony. Ms. Eney, who also serves as the Supervisor for the Town of Mamaroneck, noted that the project secured a $30-million grant from the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation and will be saving approximately $7 million in costs due to the Project Labor Agreement it reached with the union Building & Construction Trades Council of Westchester & Putnam Counties, Inc.

“This is a great day for WJWW, for our community, and for all who depend on safe, clean drinking water,” said Ms. Eney. “This moment has been more than 20 years in the making, and from the very beginning, our number-one priority has continued to be the health and safety of our residents.”

On Aug. 12, the Board of Trustees of the Westchester Joint Water Works approved a $172,761,500. contract with Yonkers Contracting Company, Inc., to construct the Rye Lake Filtration Plant at 4441 Purchase Street here in central Westchester.

After securing title earlier this year on property formerly owned by Westchester County adjacent to Westchester County Airport, WJWW completed site clearing work (performed by ELQ Industries of New Rochelle) on the 5.7-acre site.

Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said: “A lot had to happen to get us to this day. For nearly two decades, the people of Westchester Joint Water Works navigated different administrations, countless conversations, and community concerns — always with one goal in mind: protecting the water and the health of more than 100,000 residents.”

He said the project is a reminder that endeavors like this don’t come easy. “When labor, legislators, professionals and community voices all come together, we can achieve great things.”

The plant will be a 30-million-gallons-per-day dissolved air flotation/filtration (DAFF) plant. The new water treatment facilities will consist of a main process building, a sanitary pump station, an electrical substation and generators.

Paul Kutzy, manager and CEO of WJWW, said the construction on the project would likely begin in the coming weeks.

Yonkers Contracting’s Chairman Carl Petrillo noted that there is a strong partnership between the stakeholders, specifically the designer Hazen and Sawyer, Westchester Joint Water Works and his firm and noted the participation of the union trades through a PLA.

“Here in Westchester County, the trade crafts, the unions are excellent,” Mr. Petrillo said. “We work in three states and I venture to say that the trade crafts in Westchester are the best that we work with.”

He noted that the although the water filtration project will be complex, he is confident it will be a success and completed in an orderly manner and on or before schedule.

Offsetting the total project cost, currently estimated at $205 million, WJWW received a New York State Intermunicipal Grant award for $30 million. In addition, WJWW is in the process of securing subsidized interest loans through the New York State Drinking Water State Revolving Fund that could potentially provide $20 million in debt service cost savings. 

The water filtration plant is expected to be operational by early 2029. WJWW is under state and federal orders to build the plant to filter its Rye Lake water source. This project will serve as the means to comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s and NYS Department of Health water treatment rules, and address potential public health risks. On June 24, 2024, WJWW and its member municipalities—Town of Mamaroneck, Village of Mamaroneck and Town/Village of Harrison—entered into a Consent Decree with U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of U.S. EPA and New York State  Attorney General on behalf of NYS Department of Health, which consolidated and settled all federal and state claims at less than 1% of the maximum $200 million in civil penalties that could be imposed under federal and state law.

The WJWW Water System supplies drinking water for its approximately 60,000 drinking water customers in the Town/Village of Harrison, the Village of Mamaroneck, and the Town of Mamaroneck, as well as portions of the City of Rye and the City of New Rochelle. It also indirectly supplies drinking water to an additional approximately 60,000 residents of the Village of Larchmont, the City of Rye, the Village of Rye Brook, and the Village of Port Chester.

Also attending the christening were Westchester County Legislators Catherine Parker, Nancy Barr, Erika Pierce and Margaret Cunzio, Westchester County Public Works/Transportation Commissioner Hugh Greechan, Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Paul Rush, Jeff Loughlin, president of the Building & Construction Trades Council of Westchester & Putnam Counties, Inc., and Eileen McCarthy Feldman, vice president of Hazen and Sawyer.