Many in and around Sloatsburg have wondered just what has happened to the sewer project. Is work active? Will it ever be finished? The most pressing questions are why isn’t the project complete and just who is responsible for the debacle?

The Village of Sloatsburg Board of Trustees has had to deal with dissatisfaction with the project, often taking the brunt of criticism for the seemingly endless project. In reality, the board, and Sloatsburg, has been stuck in the middle, caught between the Rockland County Sewer District #1 (RCSD), its contractors, utility companies, and the New York Department of Transportation which has authority over Route 17, while actively partnering with all parties involved and attempting to steer the meandering project to completion.

The years-long Western Ramapo Sewer Project has come up 127 feet short of the finish line.

Sloatsburg Mayor Carl Wright at the site of a large dirt pile on Route 17, where the village is waiting for a stalled sewer extension project to be completed. Peter Carr at pcarr@lohud.com

In September of 2018, work on the last part of the sewer project along Route 7 in north Sloatsburg near Washington Avenue and Route 17 came to a halt when METRA workers, the current RCSD contractor on the project, practically blew themselves up with a misplaced explosive charge. The whole project came to a halt while the incident was investigated and has never re-started, even though Sloatsburg eventually approved METRA’s blasting permit.

The whole project has recently collapsed into a complex mess of lawsuits and countersuits that has METRA, the RCSD and utility companies at odds.

Sloatsburg, its residents and those living around the village are left living with the messy situation that has also brought to a halt the New York Department of Transportation Complete Streets Project through Sloatsburg. That project will eventually see a complete repaving of Route 17 through the village, plus any number of additional improvements along the state highway.

The Journal News reporter Robert Brum caught up with Sloatsburg Mayor Carl Wright, who is rightfully fuming about the sewer project which has more than doubled in cost and has created hazardous conditions along stretches of Route 17 through the village.

The Ramapo Police Department reported that two Metra workers were treated at the scene in September of 2018 during an incident that involved an errant explosive discharge on the Western Ramapo Sewer Project. Local Sloatsburg business CCI, Integrators, Inc. provided Ramapo Police with surviellance video of the area which caught the explosion.