Legislation would include Kingston Common Council in outside water sales

KINGSTON – The Public Safety/General Government Committee of the Kingston Common Council passed a resolution Tuesday night that would include the council in any decision to sell water outside city limits.
Should the full council approve the measure and the mayor sign it, the proposal would go before city voters in a referendum on the November ballot.
The move comes following the effort by Niagara Bottling to use the city’s water supply, Cooper Lake, in the Town of Woodstock, to bottle and sell water.
A referendum would give Kingston voters the opportunity to have a voice in water sales outside the city.
“Throughout the Niagara Bottling proposal, we were told that the City of Kingston hadn’t a seat at the table in the SEQR process because of the charter,” said Rebecca Martin of community organization Kingston Citizens. “The Town of Ulster, who was hoping to attract Niagara to their community, relied on Kingston’s water in order for them to do so. It took many months of hard work to make the SEQR process a public one and even then, the City of Kingston had no right to be an ‘involved’ agency.”