Remedies for old age

Less than 18 months after the Town of St. Armand built a $5.2 million wastewa-ter treatment plant in 2017, state officials directed town leaders to improve it.

The town is still looking for the money. Town Supervisor Davina Winemiller said she won’t ask residents to finance another long-term state loan, this time for disinfection and phosphorus removal. Even at zero percent interest, her constituents can’t afford the debt, she said. They are already stretched, the typical water and sewer bill costing around $1,200 a year.

“You can't get blood from a stone,” Winemiller said.

The town must also upgrade its sewer collection system in the hamlet of Bloomingdale and it aims to connect a handful of properties with failing septic systems into the municipal sewer. Winemiller said she wants clean water and to protect the environment. But residents are still paying off debt from a decades-old project and construction of the new plant. The math doesn’t work for the roughly 300 people who rely on the town’s sewer and water systems—too much