Laying pipe

Alec Mackay might have landed high marks in Constitution 101 class for his recent sleuthing through New York’s governing document. But when it comes to understanding how government functions, the strident opponent of Saratoga County’s waterline may have just won himself a Supreme Court-sized dunce cap.

As contractors fearlessly blaze a road-sized swath through the forests and scrubland of Northern Saratoga County, Mackay is now arguing they’ve got no constitutional right to plow through the state park in Moreau. MacKay, president of the private Saratoga Water Services in Malta, found a loop hole in the document stating no public or private entity has any business mowing down acres of forever-wild land, no matter what the reasoning behind it is.

The claim, reported Wednesday in The Saratogian, comes nearly a decade after Mackay bitterly warded off county overtures to seize his business and just months after his lawsuits to thwart the pipeline were tossed. The pipeline stands to put a dent in his business, if it can eventually bring a flood of cheap water to the rest of the county. It will also be quite the black eye for the Luther heir and head of the Luther Forest Corporation, when the pipeline feeds the massive amount of water needed by AMD’s chip fabrication plant in the center of his forest.

Just six months ago, Mackay made a last ditch effort to hammer in a two-mile line from his well heads near Saratoga Lake. He offered the water at a rate 10 cents less than the county’s proposed $2.05 per 1,000 gallons. But by the time he reinvigorated his offer, there was too much at stake for the county’s Water Authority for them to turn around the Herculean project; too much work, too much political face and most of all, too much money.

More than 11,000 feet of pipe have been laid so far along the 28-mile project. And that’s just the pipe. Crews have sliced a three-mile path of arbor carnage through the woods off Daniels Road between Wilton, Greenfield and Saratoga Springs. Elsewhere, workers have poured the foundation for the 3,533-square-foot administration building and water filtration plant. The bulldozers of development are on the move and there’s not much to do but watch them with a certain degree of awe.

Mackay’s philosophy might be the same one he used back in 1998, when his flurry of lawsuits virtually bankrupted the authority into giving up their push to seize his water company. But today, there are some heavy hitters aboard the county plan who have banked a fair quantity of state and federal ducats on the pricy waterline, which estimates from five years ago placed at a cost of $67 million.

The money invested, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a fair amount of development that will befall northern Saratoga County once the tap is turned on. It’s perhaps the only reason the Board of Supervisors has so doggedly chased a seemingly ludicrous plan and continues to push forward despite legal challenges from a variety of different angles, including the constitutional one pushed by Mackay.

Here’s the problem: When it comes between the state Constitution and money, the courts have a habit of siding with the later. Just ask Joe Dalton and Republican state Sen. Frank Padavan. They were part of a coalition that rightly dubbed the so-called “video lottery terminals” what they are –slot machines. They also pointed out that the state Constitution expressly prohibited such machines, where something of value is inserted to play a game of chance. The courts initially ruled in favor of the Legislature’s 2001 law, which paved the way for thousands of the machines to be installed at the Saratoga Gaming and Raceway.

The coalition appealed the decision, which was somewhat upheld by the Appellate division of the court in 2004. Of course, the Spa City’s machines were already up and running by that time and plans were already in the works to bring in more. More than three years later, the argument over VLTs has bled into history, along with the Pataki Administration, which was instrumental in bringing them here in the first place. Now that the state sees the money generated by these devices, it would take an act of God –or the sudden death of all the region’s geriatric inhabitants –to remove them from the racinos.

There’s a similar situation at play with the county pipeline. The Water Authority is moving as aggressively as possible to get enough pipes laid that any effort to thwart it could be painted as a paramount waste of tax dollars. This sad fact will likely cause any circuit court judge to push aside such an argument rather than leave several miles of pipe rusting alongside the county’s rural northern roads. Much like the persistent trampling of the constitution, the pipeline is a sad fact of life these days, which county residents will eventually be forced to accept come hell or high water.