March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Eastport to discuss tax-exempt water district

EASTPORT — The City Council will hold a regular meeting at an irregular time next week to discuss with Passamaquoddy Water District representatives the utility’s proposal to become tax-exempt.

The council will meet at 6 p.m., an hour earlier than usual on Tuesday, Feb. 18, and a day later than usual because of Presidents Day, in the band room of Shead High School.

The water district, which serves Perry, Pleasant Point and Eastport, is seeking local support, and eventually legislative support, for a change in its charter that would make it a tax-exempt entity.

At present, the district pays property taxes of about $25,000 to Eastport and about $10,000 to Perry for its buildings and equipment. The utility is not taxed by Pleasant Point.

According to Manager Joseph Gauvin, the district would use the tax money saved to leverage federal grants and other financing for major capital improvements, such as replacing the 104-year-old standpipe in Eastport and replacing old distribution lines.

Joining Gauvin at the meeting Tuesday will be a representative of A.E. Hodsdon Co.of Waterville, an engineering firm which recommends the change. In a December letter proposing the charter amendment, company president A.E. Hodsdon III noted that Passamaquoddy Water District may be the only customer-owned water district in the state that is taxed. Because the taxes are paid ultimately by the users in their water bills, Hodsdon said, the result is that the users are taxing themselves.

The proposal received a less-than-warm welcome when it was first brought up at the council’s Feb. 3 meeting, although no PWD representative was present at the meeting. Negative comments offered by councilors and members of the public focused on the $120,000 hydrant-rental fee Eastport pays to the utility and the composition of the district’s board of directors, which has three members from Pleasant Point and only one each from Eastport and Perry.

Also on the agenda Tuesday will be a proposal by Gates Fiber Extrusion to connect its Quoddy Village manufacturing plant to the city’s nearly complete waste-water collection and treatment system, a development that could add substantial revenue to the new sewer department.

City Manager Rosemary Kulow said Friday the company is installing a new septic system and would prefer to hook into the city’s treatment plant. Most of the waste water from the factory would be regular sanitary flow, with a second, separate amount being a discharge from a salt bath used in the process of turning waste plastic into fiber thread.

Kulow said the discharge contains no dangerous or hazardous chemicals, but would require preliminary treatment by Gates to adjust the Ph of the salty water.

Kulow said the addition of Gates to the system “would have substantial benefits to the individual user. Gates would become the single largest user — about 9 percent of the total system. That certainly would have a major impact on reducing costs and individual bills.”

Kulow said she will also present the council with new information on the city’s solid-waste dilemma. Eastport currently disposes of its trash at the Downeast Landfill in Marion Township, which is scheduled to close May 31 as the result of a consent agreement between the owner, Downeast Environmental Associates, and the Board of Environmental Protection.

A bill that would have kept the landfill open for another year for the purpose of relicensing received an “ought not to pass” recommendation from the legislature’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee three weeks ago. With the landfill’s days clearly numbered, Kulow said, “It’s time to make serious, definite plans for the alternative,” the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. incinerator in Orrington. Eastport currently pays $54,000 per year to use the Marion landfill. The higher tipping fees and transportation costs for PERC, and the likelihood that the city would have to build a transfer station, could increase that expense by 2 1/2 times this year, Kulow said.


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