Guard units from Maine, R.I. begin two weeks of training

Army National Guard units from Maine and Rhode Island began two weeks of training Friday that will include projects in the Maine Street 90 community-improvement program.

More than 1,300 troops under the command of the Waterville-based 240th Engineer Group are fanning out to almost 30 communities. Their planned activities range from building a salt-and-sand storage shed in Whitefield to putting steps and a handrail at the Fort Kent Armory.

The Guard received a “laundry list” of 100 suggested tasks from the Maine Street 90 program, said Sgt. Maj. Terry Knowles. They narrowed that list down to eight that they included among the final 27 projects.

The Maine Street 90 projects, like any other, had to have “some training value,” said Knowles.

Participating units are the 133rd Engineer Battalion from Portland, the 262nd Engineer Battalion from Bangor, and from Rhode Island, the 243rd Engineer Group, the 861st Construction Support Equipment Co., and the 1118th Engineer Co.

One large project under the community-betterment program will take place in Jackman, where members of the 133rd will work on the town hall, build a hockey rink and build a terminal building for the local airport.

The salt-and-sand storage shed is also a Maine Street 90 project, and represents an emphasis on environmental issues. Knowles said the Guard had always concerned itself with such matters.

“I won’t say it’s a new focus, but I think it’s a new challenge,” said Knowles.

Among the Guard’s other activities over the next two weeks, he said, are the removal of “unsuitable soil” from the site of a former tank farm on the Bangor waterfront and the transport of “green clay” from an industrial park in Brewer to that city’s landfill, where it will be used to close out the landfill.