The residents in Village of Whitehall have been conserving water since a dramatic drop in the local reservoir’s level last December.
It’s been nearly 100 days since it was discovered that Pine Lake’s water level was more than a dozen feet below where it usually is.
In the immediate aftermath, roughly 1,200 residents of the Washington County Village had to boil water and the local elementary school was closed.
Michael Putorti opened the Railyard Taproom in 2019. He says since the initial disruption, they’ve been able to operate as efficiently as possible with limited water use.
“We still try to conserve water here when we can. We don’t automatically put water on tables, we have people ask for it. In terms of dishwashing we make sure that the rack is full, you know there’s no half-racks, like, ‘hey I got a few things I’m just gonna wash it.’ We make sure that every rack is completely full before we do it. We do what we can and do our best to try and conserve. It is difficult running a restaurant when you have to conserve [water],” said Putorti.
It’s been a difficult few months for the taproom: before the water issues nearby Great Meadow Correctional shutdown, sending hundreds of regulars across the state.
Putorti says they’ve managed to stay afloat.
“So, the community in Whitehall and the surrounding area have really supported us well. We get a lot of traffic that comes here from Vermont. We have regular customers coming from Fair Haven Castleton area. The general public around here has really been good to us,” said Putorti.
Mayor Francis Putorti says while the situation has improved since December, it’s still unclear when the reservoir will be recharged.
“As of right now, we’re still at a state of conserving water and stuff like. The level of Pine Lake has been hard to judge because of the ice and snow on there so, maybe the last couple of days it’s cleared up maybe a little bit, I haven’t been up there. We’re still running the pump, we have to run the pump right now. We hope eventually once the snow runs off and we have a lot of water and Pine Lake comes up we can take the pump out. But right now we don’t know,” said Putorti.
Putorti took over for former mayor Julie Egan’s remaining term in December, barring a write-in campaign Democrat Phil Smith is set to win March 18th’s village election.
Smith says as a resident, the last four months have been a challenge.
“It’s a nuisance. And you try to conserve, I hate to say it but you don’t flush the toilet every time you go, right? And you try to—you don’t run your faucets and you’re just being conscious of what you’re using. And you may not shower every day or what your normal habits are. So, you skip a day or two or three sometimes,” said Smith.
As an incoming mayor, Smith says he’s focused on paying for the village’s recovery, which will include paying back a roughly $1.6 million loan.
“The big issue is we’re in our budget cycle so trying to put together a budget given all of the moving parts that we’ve had in the last six months is a challenge. We’ve had to take out a loan to help finance this water crisis and we have to pay it back within a year. So, we somehow have to figure out how to raise money or get money to pay that loan back,” said Smith.
Mayor Putroti says LaBella engineers are in the process of determining the water level of Pine Lake.
