A series of events has led to "catastrophic failure" of equipment at New Windsor's Butterhill water plant, Town Supervisor Steve Bedetti said Monday morning. It’s led the town to temporarily switch water suppliers while contractors repair the plant.

Bedetti explained during a special town board meeting that a chain reaction may have started with a bird flying into Central Hudson's nearby infrastructure, causing power to three wells to go on and off several times.

Bedetti said the mix-up caused untreated water to be sent to a treatment area that was still offline due to the outage, creating what is known as a "water hammer" that overwhelmed a 24-inch pipe, "blowing a 50 or 60-foot section of it apart."

Town engineers and contractors are working on a project that could end up costing the town up to $1 million.

During the repair, the town will be buying water from both the Town and City of Newburgh, which both pull its public water from the Catskill Aqueduct.

The town might end up paying about $1 million to each municipality for the water until the Butterhill water plant is repaired – a job which could take more than a month.

The town has enacted water restrictions while the repair proceeds. Residents are told not to wash cars nor water lawns, and water-intensive businesses such as nurseries must reduce water usage by 15%.

Town officials have been in touch with their insurance company.

"I'm hoping the insurance company covers it," Befetti said, knocking on the wooden conference table.

Stay with News 12 for developments on this story, as well as an exclusive look at the damage in a full report on News 12 at 5 p.m.