Last night the Village of Owego board of trustees voted to halt negotiations with Inflection Energy. The only dissenting vote was Mayor Ed Arrington.
At the end of last year the village board was considering whether or not to sell treated wastewater to the energy company. Inflection had offered to purchase up to 200,000 gallons of effluent at 5 cents/gallon - bringing potentially $3.6 million into the village coffers. But in order to sell the effluent, the village had to upgrade the facilities at a cost estimated near $400,000. At least those are the details that were made public - the village has consistently denied FOIL requests by this reporter and others for documents relating to the proposed deal.
While Arrington thinks the Village is losing a huge opportunity to bring in needed funds, village trustees see things differently. The money was never a sure thing, says trustee Jim Legursky. In a telephone conversation this morning he said that the proposed contract included a line stating that "nothing would obligate Inflection to buy water."
"The concept [selling wastewater] is great, and the village trustees are open to selling effluent," Legursky said. "But under the right contract."
For now it looks like the deal is off the table. You can read earlier posts on the proposed sale here.
I think the decision is correct given that there's no assurance that Inflection would buy their "recycled" wastewater. I mean before one spends money to upgrade facilities, he should be sure that their earnings are higher than their spending.
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