Sep. 7--Depending on whom you ask, the Saratoga County water line is the lifeblood of the American dream or a boondoggle doomed to fail as suburbia fails.

Highly controversial when it was introduced in the 1980s, and again in 2005, construction on the water line began last year. More than half the $67 million, 26-mile-long pipeline is complete. A plant is under construction in Moreau at which water drawn from the Hudson River will be treated. It will then travel through Wilton, Greenfield, Saratoga Springs and Ballston to Malta, near Luther Forest Technology Campus. The system will be capable of producing 14 million gallons of water a day.

The leaders of Advanced Micro Devices, the computer chip manufacturing company expected to move into Luther Forest, have said AMD will use 3 million gallons of water a day at $2.05 per 1,000 gallons. The town boards in Wilton and Ballston have agreed to buy 300,000 gallons and 375,000 gallons a day, respectively. No one else has signed on, but the contracts are enough to cover the debt and operating expenses for the project when it is complete, said John Lawler, chairman of the Saratoga County Water Authority. Lawler, also the Republican supervisor of Waterford, said the water line fills a need. In addition to providing AMD with the water it needs, it will make it unnecessary for individual communities to build and maintain their own water systems.

"The motivation to build this system was necessity, not discretion," Lawler said. "I believe it is the responsibility of government to provide for the community."

But James Howard Kunstler, an author who has been watching Saratoga County growth for nearly 30 years, said the water line is the opposite of what the residents need because it invites sprawl. A better alternative for the county's second biggest population center, Saratoga Springs, would be to use Saratoga Lake, Kunstler said.

The type of development that has gone into the city in recent years -- condominium buildings -- is better than subdivisions, he said. The Saratoga Lake option was loudly opposed by the people who live on the lake who were afraid it would lower the lake level and diminish property values. City Republicans who took control of the City Council in January have said the city, which gets its water from wells and Loughberry Lake, said the city doesn't need an alternative source.