PAT TERSON

Residents of Patterson are being asked to conserve water this week in the wake of a blaze that damaged the town’s sewage treatment plant.

Sunday’s blaze was reported around 3:45pm when a passerby noticed smoke coming from the 5,000-square-foot building on Cornwall Hill Road.

Patterson FD personnel under the command of Chief Frank Smith responded and requested mutual aid from neighboring communities. Firefighting apparatus from Putnam Lake, Lake Carmel, Brewster, Carmel, and Pawling rushed to the scene.

Chief Smith said the blaze was caused when a back-up generator used to power the plant for 12 hours during the weekend outage accidentally ignited outside wooden shingles and spread upwards.

The roof of the building suffered heavy damage, but the concern was for the equipment used to treat the sludge generated by residents of the Patterson Village, Cornwall Meadows, and Covington Green condos, as well as Front Street in the hamlet, the Matthew Paterson Elementary School, and the Carmel School District Administration Complex on South Street.

Patterson Supervisor Michael Griffin described the water damage to the equipment housed inside the cinderblock and concrete building as “massive. It was a very difficult blaze to extinguish. Our fire crews did an outstanding job.”

Due to the damage of intricate equipment, Griffin explained that sewage was now being pumped to the plant, but instead of being treated locally, the sludge was being trucked to a treatment facility off site.

Letters went out Monday asking those using the facility to conserve water since, according to the supervisor, the town will be “paying by the gallon to get the sludge hauled away.”

No injuries were reported. Fire crews cleared the scene at 8:30pm Sunday.

Assisting at the scene were members of the Putnam County Fire Investigation Team and representatives of both the Putnam and Dutchess Bureaus of Emergency Services.