Waterford - For nine years, the town has held an option to purchase Miller's Pond, a privately owned, 80-acre body of water near Interstate 395.

Next year, that option will expire.

Miller's Pond could supply up to 1.5 million gallons of water a day if it were cultivated as a public water source, according to Southeastern Connecticut Water Authority officials. But Rob Schacht, whose family owns Miller's Pond, said they anticipate that the town will not act on the option.

Waterford has its own water authority responsible for sewage and water infrastructure in the town. Its residents purchase their water from New London's water authority. That water originates at Waterford's Lake Konomoc, which is owned by New London, and sent through transmission lines that run through New London into Waterford.

The option agreement stipulates a $5 million price tag for Miller's Pond and Waterford officials have said they are unsure the investment is worth it at this time.

The Schacht family is now considering uses for the pond outside of making it a public water resource for Waterford, including selling the pond to another water authority or to a private owner. Sale of the pond to a private owner could take the pond off the market as a source of drinking water.

They are also considering removing the dam that separates the pond from Hunts Brook, Rob Schacht said. Under that scenario, he said, the family could decide to keep the pond.

"As a whole, my family is just tired of assuming all of this liability for this resource," he said in an interview earlier this month.

"Nothing's off the table," he said.

The deadline caps what Schacht described as a decades-long saga. He said the pond was first identified as a possible source of water in the 1950s. Multiple agencies have eyed the pond over the past 20 years, including the Southeastern Connecticut Water Authority, which does not serve Waterford, and the Town of Montville, according to Schacht.

State Department of Public Health Drinking Water Section Chief Lori Mathieu said a 2001 regional water plan for southeastern Connecticut, still in effect, cited Miller's Pond as a possible future public water source, and that New London's current Water Supply Plan also mentions it.

Schacht said he is under the impression that some people think the pond is already used as a public water source. He added that he believes many Waterford residents are not aware of the coming deadline on the option.

Mathieu said selling the pond to a private party could require Department of Public Health review because of the proximity of Waterford Country School, which the department classifies as a community water system. The private residential school, founded by the Schacht family in New York in the early 1920s, was later re-located near Hunts Brook Farm. It supplies its own well water to students and staff.

Schacht said the town's option to purchase was part of the settlement in a 2000 lawsuit by Miller's Pond LLC, which is managed by the Schacht family, against Waterford and New London. As part of the settlement, each municipality paid the Miller's Pond owners $500,000.

The lawsuit claimed the town and city conspired to restrict the corporation's right to compete as a regional water supplier by making illegal agreements, inflating the lake's safe yield figures and inappropriately asserting a right of eminent domain.

Waterford First Selectman Daniel Steward said recent conversations with Schacht had alerted him to the timeline of the option and that he is communicating with other town officials on the subject.

He said recently he would be writing to the town's Utility Commission to find out how it plans to handle the option, since the state health department raised questions in 2013 about the town's status as an independent water supply.

Commission Chairman Peter Green said purchasing the pond has not come up as a topic for the commission. He said whether or not the town were to buy the property would not impact the town water system's independent status. Green and Mathieu said recently that they expect Waterford to retain its independent status and that they are still working out the details of a memorandum of understanding.

Cost a major factor

A major factor in town considerations of purchasing the property would be cost, according to Steward.

"Somewhere we have to come up with that kind of money," said Steward.

He said the town would also have to consider the timing of potential need for an additional water source.

"Am I going to hook up to the water supply in the next month or am I going to hook up to it in the next 10 years?" he said.

SCWA board member Paul Eccard, who was Waterford's first selectman when the option agreement was negotiated, pointed out other expenses such as the cost of cultivating the pond as a water source and liability costs.

He said SCWA decided against buying the pond because agency officials determined the purchase would cause a significant increase in water rates for SCWA customers and that need for additional water was not imminent.

"It would be a great water resource, but it would have to be needed and it would have to be developed for use," he said.

He said he sees Schacht's point of view, and commented that the family has owned the pond for a long time.

"You know, I'm not surprised that the owners would be looking at something different than a water resource," Eccard said.

One of the moves under consideration, removing the dam, would make the pond shallower. Schacht has said that he would like to excavate underneath the pond in order to retain some depth if the dam were removed.

Peter Spangenberg, a civil engineer with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said removing the dam would create a contiguous connection between the pond and Hunts Brook, which along with Sandy Brook, feeds the pond. Without the dam, pond water levels would be less controllable, he said. So if the pond were used as a source of water without the dam, water might be available for use only when the pond reached a certain level.

"I think that in terms of a public water supply it may not be as useful if you remove the dam," said Spangenberg.

The prospect of dam removal raises other issues.

Removing the dam could be a boon to fish populations by expanding their habitat, according to Schacht. Spangenberg said that if state and federal environmental officials found that removing the dam would open up space for fish migration, the Schacht family could be eligible for certain grants to cover the cost of dam removal.

Spangenberg said dam removal could impact flooding from Hunts Brook. He said engineers might need to develop a model to determine exactly what that impact would be.

Flooding has been a problem for some residents who live near the pond. Kevin Ziolkovski, who lives on Millers Pond Road, sued the town in 2012 over flooding that occurred in 2010. His original complaint stated that the flooding damaged personal property and business equipment that he owned and stored at his parents' property on the road.

Ziolkovski has maintained that repairs the DEEP authorized to the dam at Miller's Pond in the 1990s created the conditions causing the flooding.

t.townsend@theday.com

Twitter: @ConnecticuTess