MAYVILLE – The Chautauqua County Health Department is defending itself regarding Fredonia’s latest boil water order.

The village just finished its sixth boil water order in the last two and a half years. During a recent Fredonia Village Board meeting, Trustee Michelle Twichell proposed a resolution to find the county in breach of contract over water connections with the village.

Twichell’s comments were discussed at the Chautauqua County Board of Health meeting.

Twichell noted the village entered into a 2020 pact with the county to provide emergency water supply in case Fredonia’s system had problems. However, she argued “the county has failed to provide or maintain a functional emergency water supply connection to the village’s system.”

During the Board of Health meeting, Jessica Wuerstle, the director of Environmental Health for the county, confirmed the contract but noted that a boil water order isn’t a true emergency. “While boil water orders are certainly a giant inconvenience for a community, it’s not an emergency in the same way as a reservoir going dry is an emergency. Fredonia has water. They could still flush toilets, they could still take showers, they could still do laundry, they could still put out fires if they had to. It’s not that they didn’t have water. They had water in the system,” she said.

Secondly, Wuerstle noted that Fredonia’s individual distribution system has very high pressure. Because of that, “as long as there is water in those pipes, the pressure coming out of the Northern Chautauqua Water District can’t force its way into the Fredonia distribution system.”

Wuerstle continued, stating that even if Fredonia’s water system was dry and the water from the interconnect could flow into the village’s system, “they are still going to be on a boil water order.” That is because the water in the Northern Chautauqua County Water District is treated differently than how Fredonia treats its water.

After Twitchell’s comments were made, County Executive PJ Wendel responded that the valves at the Fredonia Water Treatment Plant have been nonoperational for some time.

Wuerstle called the valves “very, very, very old” and said they don’t want to turn them off if they don’t have to because they don’t know if they could be turned back on.

Wuerstle added that when the boil water order was issued, it was actually done by Fredonia. Their water operators discovered there was a problem and notified the county to get the word out.

“The county has really great relations with the press, we’ve got the NY Alert System and quite honestly, we want the municipality to be throwing all their brain power at correcting the problem, so we take care of media communications,” she said.

Health Director Lacey Wilson said although residents are frustrated, she believes village officials are taking the issue seriously and are working toward a permanent solution.

“Things are moving ahead really well with some optimism and good plans. Fredonia is working through the process the right way,” she said.