By STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—Back in 1878, Brandon hired an engineering firm from Pennsylvania to dig a trench, by hand, from Fern Lake to the village, at a cost of $40,000 (approximately $1.1m today). The trench allowed water to flow from the lake to the town, obviating the need for individual wells for all the folks whose homes were hooked up to the new system.
Fern Lake no longer supplies Brandon’s water. It comes instead from ground wells tucked away in spots that Raymond Counter, Brandon’s Water Superintendent, prefers to keep secret.
“Probably not a great idea to make that information public,” he laughed in his office on Franklin Street.
The water is pumped from those wells to storage tanks on opposite sides of town. One elevated tank looms above Arnold District Road. Erected in 1968 to provide fire protection for the Brandon Training School, it has a capacity of 750,000 gallons. Two other tanks sit on Route 73 near the Brandon/Goshen line. A large blue tank, erected in 1983, sits above ground and has a capacity of 923,000 gallons. Another tank, installed underground in 1908, has a capacity of 500,000 gallons.
The Fire District is now seeking to replace the underground tank with one in another location and will offer a presentation to persuade voters to approve the plan on Monday, January 8, 2024, at 6 p.m. at the Brandon American Legion.
“The two tanks on Goshen Road feed into a single delivery pipe,” said Mr. Counter. “If that pipe ever failed, Brandon would have no water.”
The Fire District contracted with Otter Creek Engineering (OCE) of East Middlebury to examine sites around Brandon for installation of the new tank. The main criterion was elevation: the new site has to be at the same elevation as the current site, since the water-delivery system relies on gravity.
OCE identified seven potential sites around Brandon, mostly in the southern half of the town.
“The idea was to find a site that would allow Brandon to grow,” said Counter. “The areas with the most potential for new water customers are mostly in the south of town. It also better serves Otter Valley, which is on its own well. There’s limited fire protection there now. If there was a fire at OV, water would have to be trucked in.”
Voters will be asked on January 8 to allow the Fire District to move ahead with the purchase of a 2-to-6-acre site for the new tank. All in all—with the cost of the land, the tank, and the labor—the project is projected to cost $5 million, plus the cost of new pipe to connect the tank to the existing water-delivery system.
“We’re exploring all funding options, but we will have to ask the town to approve a bond,” said Counter.
A bond is essentially a loan whose cost is borne by the taxpayers of the municipality that borrows the money. In this case, because the Fire District is an independent municipality with its own budget and governance (it is overseen by the Prudential Committee, not the Selectboard), the cost of the bond would be borne by the customers of the Brandon Water Department. The debt service on the bond would show up in residents’ water bills.
“This probably couldn’t have come at a worse time,” Counter added, acknowledging the recent frustrations voiced by Brandon residents on Front Porch Forum. The concerns centered on what were perceived as excessive or unfair water and sewer bills. The discussion became so contentious that Town Clerk Sue Gage posted an explanation of how the rate structure had been formulated.
Counter has been with the Fire District since 1997 and has overseen the replacement of vast stretches of the town’s water infrastructure:
- 11 miles of distribution mains
- 153 fire hydrants
- 177 system gate valves
- 2.45 miles of service piping
- 920 curb stops
- 1224 water meters
Supervising the water system, even in a town as small as Brandon, is a never-ending task. In addition to the tank replacement, Counter is recommending the installation and/or replacement of 13,300 feet of service pipe around Brandon.
“I try to do my job to protect the water resource Brandon naturally has,” said Counter. “We are talked about for water quality. We’re known as one of the best-run water systems in Vermont. That started before I got here. We’ve always been proactive.”
Counter also noted that the Fire District had not raised its water rates since 2018, even though it took out a bond for the replacement of the water mains under Park Street and hired a second employee (Mr. Counter had previously been the Water Department’s sole employee).
“We were able to keep rates steady,” he said. “I was very frugal with my budget during COVID.”
“And people have become more conservative, less wasteful, with their water use,” Counter added. “November of ’23 was our lowest volume since 2019, even though we added 60 households to the system. We were seeing 280,000 gallons of water per day in November, our lowest on record.”
And the District’s records go back to 1854, when the Fire District was formed by an act of the Vermont Legislature, pursuant to a petition from the voters of Brandon. Mr. Counter reverently displayed one of the original minute-books in which the very first meeting, in 1854, was recorded.
Mr. Counter rescued the ledger from disposal when the District’s former offices—in the old brick firehouse next to Town Hall—were being cleaned out prior to a move.
If the plan is approved and funding is secured, the tank replacement will begin in 2026. Mr. Counter plans to retire in 2028, making the project one of his last major efforts for the District.
“This is probably the most important decision Brandon will have to make for the next 100 years,” Counter continued. “Where we’re able to deliver water will determine what Brandon’s going to look like. I hope people are forward thinking.”
