FERRIDAY — The president of Triton Water Technologies, Inc., said Thursday he believes the company still has a valid contract with the Town of Ferriday.

Triton President Bob Work said the town’s decision in late May to terminate the contract to overhaul Ferriday’s water system was not a legitimate one.

“There are no grounds for termination whatsoever,” Work said. “We weren’t negligent; we didn’t make a mistake.”

The Ferriday Board of Aldermen voted in late February to authorize the contract, which would have replaced the tank at the failing water plant with two new ones, rehabbed the electronics at the plant and replaced all of the water meters in town.

The board of aldermen voted in May to notify Triton of its intention to terminate the contract because the project had not begun, but Work said the company had not started because it was waiting on the town to get funding.

Claims made by the town that Triton was supposed to get front-end funding for the project — the supposed reason for the delay in the start of the project — are untrue, Work said.

The contract does not specify that Triton will get front-end funding.

Instead, Work said Triton had arranged a finance agreement for the town with Sun Trust Finance earlier this year, but that the town waited so long after the offer was brokered that Sun Trust withdrew the offer.

“Are they going to blame us because it took two months to get the finance papers signed?” Work said.

Work also said that the company has not gotten any response from the town in months.

Ferriday Mayor Glen McGlothin denied Work’s allegations, stating that Triton representatives had told the town attorney, the project engineer, the town’s bond attorney and even the previous mayoral administration that Triton had the financing lined up.

McGlothin also said the town was slow on getting financing because Triton did not want to go through the state bond commission, something the town is required to do when opening new debt service.

Triton was willing to go before the bond commission, but did not believe it was necessary, Work said.

The reason Triton has not heard anything from the town is because McGlothin has directed Triton to communicate with the town attorney, McGlothin said.

“If they had said something to our attorney, she would have brought it to us,” he said.

Beyond that, he has no further comment because of potential lawsuits, McGlothin said.

In a statement from Triton Thursday, the company said the apparent remedy to the situation will be litigation.

“Whenever people threaten that, I am going to turn it over to our attorney,” McGlothin said.

Triton spent three years doing engineering work and studies for the town free of charge, and Work said even after the town terminated the Triton contract it used the information Triton gathered to justify funding for the water plant before the state bond commission.

“To cancel a contract after three years of hard work, that’s bad,” Work said.

Work said if the town would let Triton begin work, the company could have the town off of its boil-water notice in eight weeks.

“As far as we are concerned, we have a valid contract and we are ready to start work,” he said.

The boil-water notice was issued May 12.