Gordon Boyd and BK Keramati Promote False Water Narrative

At the September 2, 2025, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, BK Keramati and Gordon Boyd attacked Commissioner of Public Works Chuck Marshall with the most soaring, exaggerated rhetoric, alleging that he is “hiding” a threat to the city’s water from the city’s residents and the Council. They cite a recent study of the city’s reservoir by Barton and Laguidice (B&L), which they claim Marshall is trying to keep the public from knowing about.

Boyd tries to gin up the threat on his Facebook page with phony dire warnings to support Keramati.

In the video below, Keramati tells the Council that when he read the report on the reservoir, “I couldn’t believe my eyes.” He tells the Council he can’t believe that Marshall had not advised the Council and the public of the looming catastrophe. He offers the same shrill claim in a campaign mailing he has sent out attacking Marshall. The problem is that their colleagues, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and former Public Works Commissioner Hank Kuczynski, were informed by the consulting firm of these very issues over a year ago. So much for hiding threats.

Who Is Hiding This “Catastrophe”?

Unfortunately, Boyd and Keramati leave out of their hysterical narratives the fact that Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran’s office had received correspondence from B&L in September of 2024, more than a year ago, advising Moran of the very same problems they are now claiming to expose. The DPW Commissioner’s position was vacant, and Moran was overseeing the department. Moran was aware and silent about the very same problems Keramati and Boyd claim Marshall is now supposedly hiding.

In addition, Kuczynski, after becoming Commissioner of Public Works, received an internal email acknowledging the same problems with the reservoir back on December 4, 2024. Using Keramati’s and Boyd’s logic, Kuczynski also”hid” the threat from his colleagues and the public.

Let me be clear, I do not see Moran or Kuczynski as perpetrators of a cover-up any more than Marshall is. This is all a made-up crisis by Boyd and Keramati, unfortunately meant to alarm voters as part of Keramati’s election campaign.

The Studies

Loughbury Lake, the city’s reservoir, has had many challenges. Early in the twentieth century, Loughbury Lake had a variety of manufacturing operations on its shores. The last functioning industrial business on the lake was Congress Gas and Oil. The U.S. Department of Environmental Protection forced this company to remove its dated storage facility in the 1980s.

Studies dating back to the 1980s have warned of potential problems with Loughbury Lake. Back on May 2, 2024, the city hired the consulting firm Barton and Laguidice (B&L) to again study this source of water for the city.

All the studies have identified problematic trends in the lake’s declining capacity. Due to toxic metals in the lake’s sediment that must not be disturbed, the reduction in the reservoir’s capacity also reduces its safe yield. The lake must maintain a certain volume to prevent stirring up the bottom.

It would have been helpful if Boyd and Keramati had acknowledged that, while the report recommends we pursue additional water sources, the water we do have is safe.

The Saratoga County Water Program Staff offers similar findings.

Marshall Has Been Vigorously Seeking A Long-Term Solution

Soon after Marshall was sworn in as Commissioner of Public Works on March 4, 2025, he met with representatives of B&L (the final report had not yet been completed) and, at B&L’s prompting, issued an RFP on March 7 for a study of actions the city could take to address the need for additional water. The consulting firm CT Male was awarded the contract for the work on June 3,2025.

Marshall is working with CT Male as they seek other sources of drinking water.

The Attack

When I asked Boyd on his Facebook page why Marshall would “hide” the report from the public, Boyd responded, “Good question, perhaps you might ask him.” This shows the depth of Boyd’s cynical, cavalier attitude toward making accusations without proof. Boyd did not care whether his attacks were fair or true; the point was to damage Marshall to promote his candidate, Keramati.

The only thing Keramati offered as he addressed the Council (see video below) was that the report should have been made public before work on the 2026 budget began. What Kermati failed to grasp was that the B&L report revealed the problems in the reservoir but not the solutions. Without proposed solutions, it is impossible to determine a cost to use when crafting the budget. It is hard to believe that, given his engineering background and that he had read the B&L study, he does not grasp that, without a proposed plan—the purpose of the current study by CT Male—it is impossible to determine what correcting the reservoir problems will cost.

A Sober Look

Among the many false claims Boyd makes on his Facebook page is that Marshall issued the RFP for actions the city could take to address the city’s water issues on February 13, “weeks before, not after, the B&L report was handed in last March.”

Indicative of the way this whole business was thrown together, Boyd does not even have the correct date. The RFP was issued on March 7 and not February 13. Marshall was not even in office on February 13. He was sworn in by Judge Vero on March 4.

The actual date the B&L report was delivered to the city, despite Boyd’s odd concern about the alleged date conflict, is not important. As the city engineer’s correspondence above makes clear, B&L was in close communication with the city about the issues it was uncovering during its research.

When the city has an agreement for a study like the B&L one, there is regular communication between the consultants and the city, well before the final report is issued.

Working On A Solution

Marshall won his seat on January 28, 2025. Five weeks later, and only days after being sworn in, after consulting with B&L, he issued the RFP to pursue a solution to the city’s water issues.

Unfortunately for the city, the watershed that sustains the reservoir is in Wilton and Greenfield. Marshall’s staff has been meeting with officials from these municipalities to discuss what they might do to help address toxins in groundwater that flows into the reservoir.

Commissioner Marshall told me that before any dredging or other actions can be initiated regarding the reservoir, the work on the new dam for the reservoir must be completed. When driving along Excelsior Avenue, you can see the Bast/Hatfield signs along the protective fence. The heavy equipment behind the fence is being used for the new dam.

Cheap Shots

So, Marshall has been proactive in addressing the watershed issue. In talking to the Commissioner, he told me that any public discussion of the water issue cannot be informed without the benefit of the second study on what can be done. He sees his role as analyzing both studies and submitting a proposal to the city for action supported by the two reports. Publishing the report on the problems is not helpful without some idea as to what the city must do. It is important to remember that, contrary to the false alarm Boyd and Keramati are promoting, the B&L report, as well as the County, have confirmed there is no immediate threat and the city’s water is perfectly fine to drink.

You may agree with Keramati about releasing the report earlier, or you may be happy with what Marshall has done.

What is, though, troubling are the shrill attacks by Boyd and Keramati assailing Marshall for “hiding” the study. This suggests a maliciousness on Marshall’s part that does not hold up under any kind of scrutiny. Boyd and Keramati would like to fool the public into thinking there is some sort of scandal that does not exist.

As noted earlier, there is no apparent motive for Marshall not to have brought the report to the Council. When Keramati requested a copy of the report, Marshall gave it to him immediately. Marshall could have required Keramati to FOIL for it, in which case Keramati would not have gotten a copy until after the election. Marshall is being open and transparent to his opponent.

Keramati and Boyd offer no proof or even speculation as to why Marshall has not yet published the report publicly. Keramati and Boyd do not acknowledge the possibility that Marshall was simply gathering all the information to both understand the scope and nature of the problems and their solutions before presenting the Council with what the city should do.

Instead, the two men try to exploit the situation by spreading fear among the city’s citizens, claiming that Marshall has a darker purpose. It is disappointing that Keramati has adopted this as his primary campaign strategy.

The Videos

I have included four videos. The first is Keramati’s presentation to the City Council. The second is Boyd’s statement to the Council, the third is Commissioner Marshall’s response. The fourth is Gordon Boyd’s yelling about his right to respond to Marshall despite the Council’s rules on public comment.

Note that Keramti asserts that the city should be using the B&L report to take action, and he is “at a loss” as to why it has not. The answer is that the B&L report only identified problems, but not solutions. It is the second RFP issued by Marshall, which is intended to produce a set of options for the city to address the issues identified by B&L. Only when the city has identified a solution to its water problems can it begin to determine the cost.