We’re about to spend a heck of a lot of money here in Chautauqua County to secure a basic resource.

Of course, we’re talking about water projects.

The Chautauqua Town Board meeting recently approved an $8.19 million project for construction in town Water District #2, which includes Chautauqua Lake Estates and the Villas at Chautauqua Point in the Dewittville area. Last year Chautauqua officials approved a $9,312,000 expansion of Water District 5 between the village of Mayville and Chautauqua Institution.

Mayville officials recently approved a $5,170,715 bid to S. St. George Enterprises Inc. of Fredonia for its Water Main Replacement of the Water System Improvement Project. The village will get its main line replaced along with a number of side streets. Work is expected to begin this spring and be completed this year.

Clymer officials have been eyeing a $10.4 million upgrade to the town’s water system while Pomfret received a $5 million grant for the formation of the North End Water District Phase 2 project to serve 100 existing residential and commercial properties that currently rely on private wells. County officials recently approved $50,000 for LaBella Associates to do a study regarding the village joining the Northern Chautauqua County Water District.

That’s $24,212,715 just for these projects – and that doesn’t count maintenance of existing systems that is part of all water district budgets. The Jamestown Board of Public Utilities spend a tidy sum of money to maintain its system, too, and even then BPU officials often bemoan the work that still needs to be done on the BPU’s aging water infrastructure because there is never enough time, manpower or money to carry out all the work that needs to be done in a given year.

We say all that to say this – we really do rely on the federal government to help improve our water infrastructure. Federal money should be spent wisely, but turning off the spigot to this money can’t be an option as the Department of Governmental Efficiency continues its work.