Throughout the year, the Town of Montgomery has been weighing a new wellhead protection law. After months of discussion, the law has been adopted.

In the local law, the purpose reads, “The intent of the law is to promote the health, safety and general welfare of the public by prohibiting certain developments and/or activities known to be of high risk to public water supply wells, thereby safeguarding the community water supply and the residents that depend upon same.”

The law consists of many rules, like being in compliance with the building inspector when doing specific activities that could interfere with the local water supply. These activities also need to take place at least 300 feet away from wells. Certain activities include chemical storage sites, landfill waste disposal areas and more.

“Wellhead Protection is a very focused law that’s intended to have the building inspector, when he gets an application for certain activities like salt storage [or] application of a waste product overland like manure, check before he issues a permit for those activities that there’s not a public water supply well within range,” said Town Planner Maximillian Stach in mid October.

The wellhead protection law was unanimously passed Wednesday, November 30 by Montgomery trustees. Deputy Supervisor Ronald Feller noted the amount of work put into the law over the past year.

“The Wellhead Protection local law is something that we’ve worked a long time on,” said Feller.