TOWN OF BETHANY, N.Y. (WKBW) — Dozens of farmers in the Town of Bethany attended Wednesday night’s meeting to hear the board’s solution to fix the well water woes that have been hurting their businesses and livelihoods.
Mike Adam has been running a farm in Bethany for 47 years.
“I like to have it for my next generations,” he says.
But he’s crossing his fingers.
“I know that we don’t have the funds. If we lost all of our water, one hundred percent. We don’t have the funds to drill another well,” Adams says. “And we don’t have the machine and trucks to haul it in. We’d be out of business basically.”
A miracle may be on the way for Adams and other farmers as the town has received a $21 million grant from ew York State.
Bethany Town Supervisor Carl Hyde Jr. has been fighting for public water since he came to office in 2013.
“We will get the package put together and get it sent to the comptroller’s office who has been in constant touch with me because of the drought issue. As soon as we hear from them we will get the project out to bid,” Hyde says. “We can start putting pipes in the ground. It's a 152,000 linear feet pipe. Two water towers and two pumping stations, so it’s a huge project.”
Hyde says this project would take 16 to 18 months to complete.
Until then, Mark Barie of Lor Rob Dairy Farm tells 7 News reporter Yoselin Person he has 4,000 cows to feed despite the water woes.
“It’s a lot of give and take we had to manage seven different wells for the one dairy that we’re here now and we just had to keep cleaning those wells,” Barie says. “Fracking those wells and trucking water and getting all the help we can get.”
Farmers in the Town of Bethany may have to sit tight for a while.
“Fingers crossed. I would like to start digging by August of this year. So Christmas of 2025 or maybe sooner God willing,” says the town supervisor. “People would be able to go to the taps and have water so that they can relieve their problems with the wells.”
