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Residents’ water study

The Village wells and the aquifer

The Village of Wappingers Falls drinks from one place: a wellfield beside Wappinger Lake, fed by a shallow sand and gravel aquifer. The Ridge would clear and pave a wooded hillside in the area that drains toward it.

6,103

people served by the Village system (1,540 connections)

1 source

the Village wellfield on Canale Way, beside Wappinger Lake

≈1,260 ft

from the wells to the nearest edge of The Ridge site (approx.)

Elevated

State rating of the wells’ susceptibility to contamination

Where the area’s water comes from

Public water here comes from two kinds of source. The City and Town of Poughkeepsie, Hyde Park and Staatsburg drink treated Hudson River water (about 82,000 people). The Village of Wappingers Falls and the Town of Wappinger’s United Wappinger district drink from wells (about 19,500 people), which depend on what soaks into the ground around them. Homes outside these areas mostly have their own wells.

Hudson River Wells Small systems, source not checked (dashed = EPA-estimated boundary)
Water systemSourcePeople servedNotes
Town of Poughkeepsie (townwide district)
NY1302812		Hudson River

Hudson River, from the same joint plant

43,000The Town uses about 4.5 million gallons a day and may take up to 10 by agreement. It is bringing three emergency wells near Wappinger Creek (Overlook Road) back online.
City of Poughkeepsie
NY1330291		Hudson River

Hudson River, treated at the Poughkeepsies’ Water Treatment Facility (owned jointly by the City and Town)

30,639
United Wappinger (Town of Wappinger)
NY1330660		Wells

Atlas, Hilltop and Meadowwood wellfields

14,000The Town’s source protection plan treats all three as groundwater under the direct influence of surface water, and cites studies estimating up to half of the Atlas and Hilltop yield comes from the neighbouring creeks.
Hyde Park Regional
NY1302796		Hudson River

Hudson River, its own intake and treatment plant

6,928Also supplies the Staatsburgh, Zone D & L and Pinebrook systems. Averaged about 1.1 million gallons a day in 2024.
Village of Wappingers Falls
NY1302783		Wells

The Village wellfield beside Wappinger Lake (sand and gravel aquifer)

5,522The Village’s only source; see the aquifer section below.
Staatsburg
NY1302777 · boundary estimated by EPA		Hudson River

Hudson River, bought from the Hyde Park system

1,164
Greenfield (Hyde Park)
NY1302794 · boundary estimated by EPA		Source not checked

Not checked

1,050
LaGrange Town Center
NY1330320 · boundary estimated by EPA		Source not checked

Not checked

980
Fleetwood Manor (Town of Wappinger)
NY1302779 · boundary estimated by EPA		Source not checked

Not checked

564

Service areas: state-supplied boundaries for the large systems and EPA estimates for small ones (dashed on the map), from the EPA’s Community Water System Service Area Boundaries. The Town of LaGrange’s Manchester district (two wells on Whites Bridge Lane, about 3,978 people) has no published boundary and is not drawn. Well locations are shown only roughly.

Where the Village’s water comes from

  • All Village water comes from wells at the 8-acre Village wellfield on Canale Way, on the shore of Wappinger Lake. In 2025 the treatment plant supplied about 494,000 gallons a day to about 6,103 people.
  • Of the three active wells, Well #3 stayed offline through 2025 because of manganese, so the Village ran on two wells (#7 and #7A). The Village’s plan says it is looking for a backup source because it depends on this single wellfield.
  • The wells draw from a sand and gravel aquifer. The State’s source water assessment rates the wellfield as having “an elevated susceptibility to microbial and nitrate contamination”, due mainly to residential land use and related activity in the area, and notes that the soils above the aquifer “may not provide adequate protection.”
  • In 1993 the County’s Water and Wastewater Authority placed Wappinger Lake in a Zone 1 Aquifer Protection Area, where, in the Village plan’s words, contaminants can move down to the aquifer “with little or no natural filtration by the soil.” In 1998 the Village made the lake and the wellfield a Critical Environmental Area.

Where The Ridge sits

A Source Water Protection Plan prepared for the Village by the New York Rural Water Association (2016) mapped three zones around the wells: Zone 1 immediately around them, Zone 2 (the “zone of contribution” whose groundwater reaches the wells) and Zone 3 (the tributary watershed that drains into it). On that map, The Ridge site falls mostly within Zone 3, with its eastern side running along Zone 2, uphill of the wells.

Village of Wappingers Falls Source Water Protection Area map, with the approximate outline of The Ridge site in Zone 3 beside Zone 2, north of the wellfield
Village of Wappingers Falls Source Water Protection Area (Figure 6 of the Village’s 2023 Comprehensive Plan, from the New York Rural Water Association). The magenta outline is The Ridge site’s County tax parcel, placed on the map by Dutchess Voice using the map’s scale bar and the wellfield’s location, so it is approximate. The Village’s own GIS files would confirm it.

The Village’s Comprehensive Plan asks the Village to “inform the Town of Poughkeepsie of the Village’s source water protection area and ask that they consider potential impacts on the water supply when making decisions to approve projects within this critical area.” The Ridge is such a project.

What the development would change

  • 23 wooded acres cleared on a hillside with slopes over 25%. Woods and forest soil soak up and filter rain before it reaches groundwater.
  • Roofs, roads and about 246 parking spaces in their place, with runoff sent to infiltration and bioretention basins, which put stormwater into the ground in the area that drains toward the wells.
  • Winter road salt on the new roads and parking lots. The Village’s 2025 tests found chloride at 106 mg/L (the limit is 250), with road salt among the listed sources. Sodium was 161 mg/L; the Village’s softening plant also adds sodium, so the tests can’t say how much comes from salt. New York advises that water with more than 20 mg/L of sodium should not be used for drinking by people on severely restricted sodium diets.
  • Construction: months of excavation, fuel and equipment on the slope above the aquifer.

Questions for the Town Board

  1. Has the applicant mapped the site against the Village’s Source Water Protection Plan zones?
  2. Has the Village of Wappingers Falls, and its Board of Water Commissioners, been notified and consulted, as the Village has asked?
  3. How would stormwater be treated before it is infiltrated in the area draining to the Village wells?
  4. What salt management would apply to the new roads and about 246 parking spaces?
  5. What protections would apply during construction on the slope?

Sources