By Polly Mikula
Building a new municipal water system to service Killington Road businesses, residents and a proposed new village at the base of Vermont’s second highest peak is a massive undertaking. Years of planning, grant applications, development agreements, TIF approvals, bond votes and bids are just a few of the more obvious hurdles the town has had to crossed before the project could get underway. All that work was unseen until now.
Abbie Sherman, the public works director for the town of Killington, certainly has her hands full.
Today, there is a well-house constructed along the flats of Route 4 (directly behind the Mountain Times building) with three wells drilled. Underground pipes will bring water along the far side of the Ottauquechee River, then cross the river and Route 4 to a pump station (currently under construction), which will then pump water up to Shagback Mountain (across East Mountain Road, parallel to Snowshed Mountain). The first of two tanks is currently being built on Shagback Mountain to hold 750,000 gallons of water (weighing about 6 million pounds), according to Mitchell O’Neil from Dufresne Group Consulting Engineers and Jeffery Gokey from Casella.
Mikula Casella workers stand atop what will be a 750,000 gallon water tank in Killington.
The tank will be about 35-40 feet tall including the dome, with 6 feet underground.
Casella has been working on Contract 1-3A for over a year. Contract 1-3A brings water from the valley wells to the pump station on Route 4 then up across East Mountain Road to Shagback Mountain and back down to East Mountain Road.
Preload, a company specializing in building prestressed concrete tanks on site, is sending a crew from Texas to build the water tank on Shagback Mountain. Gokey estimated that about 20 crew members would be living in the area for about three months until the tank is completed — sometime in August. At that point, Casella will come back in for landscaping. Substantial completion is slated for September with final completion in early October.
All electrical controls will be housed in the well-house and pump-house. The only power at the tank will be solar to power a sensor to detect the water level in the tank.
The pump house on Route 4 will treat municipal water before pumping it uphill to the tank.
Separately, a bit farther down the mountain, SUR Construction West, Inc. of Winchester, New Hampshire, has also been making significant progress putting water pipes under Killington Road. SUR Construction was awarded the bid for Contract 4, which will hook into a water main connection on East Mountain Road (where the line from down from the Shagback Mountain tank) and bring the water to the proposed village area, then continue down “Road H” (yet to be built behind Still on the Mountain) to Killington Road to the intersection of Ravine Road. The Contract 4 waterline will be gravity fed from the storage tank, with two pressure-reducing valves.
Work began at Ravine Road in April and crews have been working up the road (south) since at a rate of about 300 feet per day.
“Thus far SUR hasn’t hit ledge,” said Brady Roy, of Dufresne Group. “But this portion was pretty well blasted in the ‘80s when they last did a major rebuild of Killington Road… farther up past the Lookout, we’re less sure what we’ll find,” he added.
SUR Construction estimated that it would take 405 days to complete, with a planned break in the schedule next winter, according to its bid.
A portion of Contract 4 — East Mountain Road through the proposed village — is within the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district. The portion from The Lookout to Ravine Road is outside of the TIF district and will instead be financed through an American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant, according to Sherman.
At Town Meeting Day Killington in March voters overwhelmingly approved a bond (not to exceed $11.2 million) for the final portion of the new municipal water system — Contract 5, 6A, and 7. Bids for 5 and 6A (Ravine Road to Anthony Way) will be going out in the fall, according to Sherman. Bids for Contract 7 (west along Route 4 from the base of Killington Road) won’t be solicited for about two years, she said.
Homeowners and businesses along the new waterline will be notified of meetings with the town to discuss what’s required to hook-up. The next prospective water users meeting is Monday, June 16 at 10 a.m. Anyone interested should email Sherman at: [email protected].
The first working water hook-ups are anticipated by next summer (2026).
