Further analysis questions usefulness of Terramor Saugerties Catskills’ Well-Water Studies

On December 20th, Paul Rubin, hydrologist, supplied the Saugerties Planning Board with additional analysis of the CT Male (Terramor’s well-water contractor) submission from November 6th. CT Male’s submission was a smaller part of a larger Extended EAF submission.

The new document is labelled “Appendix B: Supplement to HydroQuest December 5, 2022 report titled: Proposed Terramor Glamping Project: Hydrologic and Land Use Based Justification for Issuance of a Positive SEQRA Declaration

In short, the analysis shows that the claims made by Terramor (that there is enough water available and that neighbors’ will not be overly adversely affected by the project and its water requirements) are suspect at the least, and built on deficient data.

A very strong case is made once again for a “positive declaration” for SEQRA purposes. And that it is not yet time for a Public Hearing

HydroQuest-Mid-Hudson Geosciences Appendix B


This submission can also be accessed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XSTyqVfS3qq7RbqJrensnZJGtuUNgtHs/view?usp=share_link


This submission has been added to the Google Drive file with all other public documents here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19UMi-g3Kqng5l2SKKB8POGecUbdcK40M?usp=sharing

Well-testing proceeds on Terramor property

Well water testing

Immediate neighbors of the Terramor property will notice increased activity on the property over the next couple of weeks.

As announced a while back, contractors for the developer will be testing three wells. Tests should start Friday September 16th and continue for up to three weeks. Neighbors may see heavy equipment moving and will hear generators.

There will be several steps to the testing:

  1. First, each well will undergo “step tests”. These tests may happen simultaneously at each of the three wells.

    A step-drawdown test (or step test) is a single-well pumping test designed to investigate the performance of a pumping well under controlled variable discharge conditions. In a step-drawdown test, the discharge rate in the pumping well is increased from an initially low constant rate through a sequence of pumping intervals (steps) of progressively higher constant rates. Each step is typically of equal duration, lasting from approximately 30 minutes to 2 hours. Each step should be of sufficient duration to allow dissipation of wellbore storage effects. (From http://www.aqtesolv.com/pumping-tests/step-drawdown-tests.htm

    Pressure in the well is also measured all during this process.

  2. Next, each well will be subjected to a “constant flow” test.

    A control well is pumped at a constant rate and water-level response (drawdown) is measured in one or more surrounding observation wells and optionally in the control well itself. The goal of a constant-rate pumping test is to estimate hydraulic properties of an aquifer system such as transmissivity, hydraulic conductivity and storativity (storage coefficient). (From http://www.aqtesolv.com/pumping-tests/constant-rate-pump-tests.htm)

    A constant flow test will last at least 24 hours, but should likely last longer than that to generate more accurate data.

  3. Finally, immediately after each of the constant flow tests at each individual well, samples of the water will be taken for analysis.

Readers may remember that Terramor has expressed a willingness to “test neighbor wells while we test ours”. We have contacted Terramor to find out about this and have been told that they are working on it (2022-09-24). At a minimum, it seems that these neighbor tests should include all wells withing 1000 feet of Terramor property lines, should include water quality sampling (for contaminants) and, most importantly, tests to see if neighbor wells react **during** Terramor’s constant flow tests. These tests would likely involve dropping a transducer down the neighbor’s well bore hole and taking pressure measurements at short, repeating intervals for the duration of the test. The most accurate data would be obtained by minimizing household water use for the duration of the test.

We will update this site as we get more details of how neighbors might participate in testing.

As always. please advise errors or omissions.