The Town of Owasco will be reimbursed $15,400 in fines and grants after officials corrected problems at the municipal garage and turned in project vouchers.

Paragon Environmental Construction reimbursed Owasco $1,400 for a fine that was levied by the state Department of Environmental Conservation after the town fuel depot was found to be in violation of state regulations. The DEC inspection found that Owasco's tanks were improperly labeled, and cited the town for failure to keep weekly monitoring records, failure to reconcile inventory records, failure to monitor for leaks within the fuel storage system and failure to perform monthly inspections.

Owasco Town Supervisor John Klink said the fines came after Paragon failed to finish the work on the $142,000 fuel depot construction project last year.

“We didn't know we had to monitor it,” Klink said. “(Paragon) was supposed to come back and finish the work but they didn't. We fell through the cracks. We just assumed they were done.”

While most of the project was finished, Paragon still needed to label one 500-gallon above-ground tank, which held oil, and two underground tanks, which held a combined 3,000 gallons of fuel, and train the town's employees on how to properly work the equipment.

The work was never completed because the project's supervisor died in a snowmobile accident in the winter of 2007, Klink said.

After writing a letter to the company last month, Klink said its owner, Peter Paragon, offered to immediately finish the construction and training, in addition to mailing a check to reimburse the town for the fine on Sept. 3.

Diane Carlton, a spokeswoman for the DEC, said Paragon has finished the project and that Owasco was in compliance with all state codes.

Paragon could not be reached for a comment.

The town would also be receiving $14,000 for three grants after it sent in all the necessary paperwork and vouchers, Klink said. Owasco was in danger of losing the money after the state's attorney general's office labeled the applications as rejected or incomplete.

“We did not lose anything,” Klink said. “All three have been mailed and they said we should get the checks within a month.”

The town could only receive a grant after they spent their own money on the project.

One grant would reimburse the town $5,000 for an engineering survey which examined the cost of installing a sewer system for nearly 240 homes between Burtis Point and Koenig Point on Owasco Lake.

The survey, which was conducted in Aug. 2005, estimated that the cost for installing the system would cost the town more than $3.5 million.

“Our residents could not bear that cost so we need a sizable grant to pay a good part of that cost,” Klink said. “We have been trying to secure funding and we are on a list for it, but there has been no money yet.”

A 2006-2007 member item grant would reimburse the town $5,000 for a playground construction project it had recently completed. Owasco had budgeted $15,000 for new playground equipment at a site on Owasco Road and at a hamlet at the Owasco Twelve Corners.

The third grant would pay $4,000 for the town to switch to electronic water meter readers, which would enable the town to check yearly results from the street instead of going into every house.

“We have to read each house every year, and it is a costly, time consuming process,” Klink said. “The electronic readers will allow people to drive up and down the street with this device, which is like a gun, and then read the meters from the car and record them.”

The town plans to implement the meters in all homes by 2012 by installing a few hundred each year, Klink said.

Staff writer Nate Robson can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 248 or nathan.robson@lee.net