By Gina Castellani
LEWISTON, N.Y. — Over three wet summer months, the Town of Lewiston’s sewage treatment plant broke a limit it says it had never broken before. On Monday night the Town Board will consider a temporary local law that would stop the town from approving the engineering studies larger developments need to hook into the sewer system.
The draft, Local Law No. 6 of 2026, is listed on the board’s Oct. 26 agenda as “Six Month Moratorium – Downstream Capacity Analyses.” It would copy a pause that Niagara County Sewer District No. 1 adopted in August. Together the two measures would leave much of central and northern Niagara County unable to give final sewer sign-off to new projects over a set size until at least the end of February.
Neither moratorium touches ordinary single-family homes. They are aimed at subdivisions, apartment complexes, and commercial and institutional projects large enough to need a downstream capacity analysis, the study that shows whether the pipes and plant below a site can handle the added flow. Under the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s standard, that means projects sending more than 2,500 gallons a day into the sewer.
Officials say the problem is not the sewage new homes would produce. It is rainwater and groundwater leaking into pipes built only for sewage, and how much of it arrives when storms hit.
A plant over its permit
The Lewiston proposal came from Jeff Ritter, chief operator of the town’s Water Pollution Control Center, at an Oct. 15 Town Board work session. Mr. Ritter “feels the Town should follow the direction the County is going,” according to draft minutes in the board’s meeting packet.
“I want to propose a moratorium on downstream capacity analysis in the town,” Mr. Ritter said, as reported by the Niagara Frontier Publications papers. He described the analysis as the tool “used by a developer to calculate their effect on (a) sewer system for a project that will contribute more than 2,500 gallons per day.”
The minutes say the plant’s rolling average flow under its DEC permit has passed its 2.75 million gallon-a-day allowance, “not something that has ever happened before here.” Mr. Ritter showed the board operating reports: an average of 2.9 million gallons a day in July and 3.07 million in August.
“This is the first time (from) June, July and August of this year, due to heavy rainfall. We’ve now surpassed our 2.75-million-gallons-a-day limit,” Mr. Ritter said, according to the papers. “So, it’s going to take a long time to get our averages back to the point where we’re supposed to be.”
He put the plant at “approximately 320,000 gallons per day over the 2.75-million-gallon (DEC) permit.”
The minutes tie the excess flow to “flooding issues and rain intensity,” which they say have led to sewage backing up into Lewiston basements.
“We have to try and do something, and people want to see this department do something about it,” Mr. Ritter said, according to the minutes.
Board member Rob Morreale moved to have the town attorney draft a six-month moratorium on downstream capacity analysis approvals. Board member Sarah Waechter seconded, and the minutes record the motion as carrying 4-0.
What the draft law would do
The draft in the packet is titled the “Town of Lewiston Downstream Sewer Capacity Analysis Approval Moratorium Law of 2026.” Its stated purpose is to give the town time “to facilitate the development of a comprehensive town-wide inflow and infiltration reduction and sewer infrastructure management plan.”
Its main points, as drafted:
- Six months, renewable. The pause would begin when the law is filed with the New York secretary of state. The Town Board could extend it by resolution for additional periods of up to six months each.
- No final approvals. No town board, officer, engineer or consultant could give final approval to a new downstream capacity analysis tied to sewer extensions, subdivisions, commercial, industrial or institutional projects, or expansions of existing buildings.
- Review can continue. Developers could still submit studies and the town could still review them. But the draft says preliminary findings would not “create a vested right to approval.” Site plans and other permits could still move forward, as long as no final approval relied on an unapproved capacity study.
- Exemptions. The law would not apply to studies the town has already approved (unless a project is materially changed), ordinary residential connections, projects under 2,500 gallons a day, existing connections, emergency repairs, municipal infrastructure, or permits already issued.
- A plan in the meantime. During the pause, the town would carry out a town-wide inflow and infiltration assessment through the treatment plant and the town engineer. It could also weigh mitigation requirements for new development, “including measures intended to offset added wastewater flows through I&I reduction.”
The draft’s findings call the moratorium “temporary and narrowly tailored.” They say it “is not intended permanently to prohibit” development, language commonly written into moratoriums so they hold up against legal challenges. The findings note that the county district “reportedly adopted” its own six-month pause on Aug. 26.
Monday’s 6 p.m. meeting also includes the town’s 2027 preliminary budget. The agenda lists the moratorium under “Legal,” and the packet does not say whether a public hearing will be scheduled first. Under state Municipal Home Rule Law, a local law generally needs a public hearing before the board adopts it.
The county moved first
The town plant is not the only sewer system in Lewiston. Niagara County Sewer District No. 1, which WKBW reports serves Lockport, Wheatfield, Cambria, Lewiston, Niagara and Pendleton, adopted its own moratorium first.
According to the district’s Aug. 26 minutes, its administrative board adopted a resolution “Establishing a Temporary Moratorium on the Approval of Downstream Capacity Analyses.” The resolution says the district’s facilities are designed to carry sanitary flow only and were “overwhelmed by stormwater flooding” during storms on Aug. 2 and 3.
The resolution took effect immediately and expires Feb. 26, 2027. Projects that already had capacity approval, or that fall below 2,500 gallons a day, are not affected. The minutes note that a capacity analysis is required under the state environmental review process only above that threshold.
The roll call was 4-1. Commissioner Joel M. Maerten made the motion, and Commissioner Steve Broderick seconded it. Commissioners Matthew Foe and Sylvia Virtuoso also voted yes. Chairman Mark C. Crocker voted no. Vice Chairman Don MacSwan was excused.
Mr. Broderick is also the Lewiston town supervisor, so he has helped bring the same policy before both boards. Lewiston’s town engineer, Robert P. Lannon of the engineering firm GHD, also appears in the district’s minutes as the firm’s representative on the district’s 2026 inflow and infiltration study.
Mr. Crocker explained his vote to WKBW. “It is a capacity issue when we get these big storms,” he said. “On a normal day-to-day basis, the sewer system takes in 6-7 million gallons of waste, and during the storm on August 2 and 3, we handled 60 million gallons.”
“We need them to look at the entire system and see where this inflow is happening,” Mr. Crocker said of the district’s member towns.
He opposed the pause anyway. “I voted no because I didn’t think it was necessary at this moment. We have actions in place right now to help the situation,” he told the station.
The Lockport Union-Sun & Journal also reported the vote, noting Mr. Crocker was the lone dissent.
Four storms in six years
The district’s administrative director, Thomas W. Blodgett, told the board in August that the system had been hit by four major storm events in five to six years: July 2021, February 2022, January 2024 and August 2026, according to the minutes.
He also told commissioners that “the State has presented major obstacles” to towns trying to clean out creeks and ditches. After talks with county emergency management, he recommended that the district and its towns focus their inflow and infiltration work on water that pours in directly during floods.
The minutes say GHD had calibrated a model of the system for the district’s 2026 inflow and infiltration project, with a draft report expected in early September. The district’s July minutes note that member towns can be reimbursed up to $25,000 by the district for their own I/I work.
The district’s September agenda listed “SPDES Permit Violations Due to Wet Weather Flooding,” “2026 Town I/I Requests” and “Storm/Flooding Events – Impacts on Sanitary Systems.” SPDES is the state discharge permit system. Minutes from that meeting had not been posted to the county’s website as of early Sunday, so it is not clear what the board heard about those violations or what was decided.
Who is waiting
At the Oct. 15 session, according to the Lewiston minutes, “The proposed development in Sanborn is already halted by the Niagara County moratorium.” The minutes do not name the project.
Sanborn is a hamlet that lies partly in the Town of Lewiston. The best-known project there this year is Sanborn Square, a $23 million housing development proposed for Saunders Settlement Road. Residents raised objections at a lengthy Lewiston Planning Board hearing on it, the Niagara Gazette reported. Town records reviewed by The Chronicle do not confirm that Sanborn Square is the project the minutes refer to. The Chronicle is asking the town.
Sewer capacity is also holding up a project elsewhere in the district. Plans to redevelop the former Niagara County Infirmary campus on Davison Road in the Town of Lockport are on hold while officials wait for video of a City of Lockport sewer line, the Union-Sun & Journal and Niagara Gazette reported.
Lockport Mayor John Lombardi III described the problem in an email quoted by the papers. “The private contractor came out and attempted to film the line in question. They could not get their camera through most of the sewer line, due to the volume of water present,” Mr. Lombardi said. “We will once again attempt the process very soon with lower levels of flow in late fall. We had not planned on the inability to run the camera due to higher volume.”
In other words, there was so much water in a sanitary sewer line that a camera could not get through it.
Developers pay, homeowners get clamps
Lewiston already has a tool that ties growth to leak repairs. Under the town’s rules, according to the minutes, developers whose projects exceed 2,500 gallons a day must remove four and a half times the flow they add. Local Law No. 1 of 2020 let developers pay into a fund instead of doing the repairs themselves, so the money “can be used more efficiently.”
“Funding doesn’t come from the water consumers or taxpayers. It comes from developers to do this. We don’t have a lot of money to do this,” Mr. Ritter said, according to the Niagara Frontier Publications report.
The plant’s first project is simple. The minutes say plant crews would use town employees and equipment to install A-clamps, which fasten the PVC vent and cleanout stacks in residents’ yards to the private sewer lateral below. Freezing and thawing loosen the stacks over time, and rainwater then drains down the sides of the pipe into the sanitary sewer.
Mr. Ritter told the board some of the stacks can be pulled right out of the ground by hand, according to the minutes. Until now, the town has fixed the problem only through time-of-sale inspections, when a house changes hands. He estimated about 50 homes he knows of need clamps, many of them around James Drive. The minutes say the problem there “really can’t wait for people to move out of their homes to be fixed.”
The plant is also pricing pipe lining, the minutes say, after Mr. Ritter showed photos of roots and grass growing into town pipes. “If roots and grass can get through, so can water,” the minutes paraphrase him.
The town is working on storm drainage as well. The Highway Department is replacing culverts around James Drive and has found a blockage behind Bronson Drive. Mr. Lannon told the board he is aiming for a 90 percent design submittal on Nov. 20 for drainage improvements in the Morgan Farms subdivision. The minutes say clearing drainage paths depends on DEC permits.
What it means for housing
The pauses land as state and local leaders push for more housing, including Gov. Kathy Hochul’s effort to tie state infrastructure money to local housing growth, which The Chronicle covered this week. In Niagara County, that push is now running into the limits of sewer systems that take in many times their normal flow during heavy storms.
Supporters of the moratoriums say pausing approvals now is cheaper than approving projects the pipes cannot handle and paying for the basement backups and permit violations later. Critics, including the district’s own chairman, say the systems already have fixes underway and a blanket pause is not needed.
For developers, the practical effect is delay rather than denial. Both measures allow studies to be filed and reviewed. Both exempt smaller projects and those already approved. And both are written to end: the county’s on Feb. 26, and Lewiston’s six months after filing unless the board extends it.
The Lewiston Town Board meets at 6 p.m. Monday. Its next work session is Nov. 9, the Planning Board meets Nov. 19, and the next regular Town Board meeting is Nov. 23, according to the packet.
The Chronicle is seeking comment from the Town of Lewiston, Niagara County Sewer District No. 1 and the City of Lockport, including which Sanborn project the minutes refer to and what the district was told about its wet-weather permit violations. This story will be updated with any responses.
Photo: The Village of Lewiston’s Red Brick Municipal Building, a former high school. Andre Carrotflower / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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