Binghamton Sewage Plant Receives Loan

Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that the struggling sewage plant in Binghamton will be getting a loan worth $30.3 million from the state. The loan will look to help make repairs to the facility which suffered a collapsed wall in 2011 and then was heavily damaged later that year by Tropical Storm Lee. Twelve municipalities in Broome County and 120,000 customers use the sewage plant, and repairs could cost upwards of $160 million when work is finished by 2017. Cuomo says the loan from New York will be mostly interest free and will help lower the cost of the repairs, which will include a flood wall to prevent damage during storms in the future. The plant has been the subject of criticism for over two years, after the wall collapse in May of 2011 allowed over a half million gallons of untreated wastewater to enter the Susquehanna River, with more wastewater entering the Susquehanna and Fuller Hollow Creek after the storm later that year. $25 million of the loan from the state will be interest-free, and New York will also be providing $340 million in interest-free loans and grants for flood protection projects at drinking water and wastewater sites in the fourteen counties impacted by Superstorm Sandy in October of last year.