Water bill stirs towns’ passions > Searsport unhappy with legislation

AUGUSTA — They insist they’re not the Hatfields and McCoys of midcoast Maine, but if the ground-water feud between Prospect and Searsport keeps up, it’s going to be time to break out the straw hats and squirrel guns.

The neighboring, though hardly neighborly, towns squared off in front of the Legislature’s Committee on Utilities and Energy Monday for a hearing on a bill Prospect says will redress the wrongs it suffered when the Searsport Water District drilled wells on the wrong side of the town line last year. Searsport claims the bill is a pointless attempt to inflict enormous financial pain on the district’s ratepayers.

In response to federal drinking water mandates, the district put two new ground-water wells into service last year, wells that replaced its long-time surface source at Half Moon Pond and that, unfortunately and inadvertently, were drilled within the Prospect town limits.

The Legislature straightened out the legal aspects of the encroachment last spring, but the new bill contains additional remedies Prospect wants to further protect its aquifer.

The water district has about 900 customers in Searsport and Stockton Springs, although only Searsport has members on the board of trustees, appointed by the selectmen. Stockton Springs is only a customer and not a member of the district.

The bill would allow Stockton Springs to hold a referendum on joining the district and gaining representation on the board, breaking up what Prospect resident Sam Miller called, “the good old boys network that runs the town of Searsport and the water company.”

The district now is in the process of seeking a 66 percent rate hike to pay for the $2 million wells, but the bill would hold the residents of Stockton Springs harmless for any debt incurred before they join.

That’s a good thing, said Prospect Selectman John Hyk, “because many of the water district’s financial decisions in the past may not have been wise ones.”

The bill also requires that future bond issues be approved by the voters of the member towns, not just by the trustees, and prohibits the district from exporting water beyond its boundaries.

The most disputed part of the bill would require the district to keep Half Moon Pond on tap as a possible additional source should it be needed. That provision would prevent the utility from selling land it owns on the shoreline and would give it the authority to ban recreation, such as swimming and boating, should the need arise.

Rep. Eddie Povich of Ellsworth, the bill’s sponsor, said federal regulations favoring ground water over surface water “led the district to drill expensive wells in Prospect. They made a mistake that only some very creative legislation last year could correct. The Searsport selectmen haven’t followed through, they haven’t cooperated, so this bill is needed to ease the emotions and heal the divisions.”

Co-sponsor Rep. Robert Tufts of Stockton Springs agreed that the wells “have created many financial problems and ill will.” With industrial growth likely to follow the state’s plan to build a cargo port in Searsport, Tufts said a backup supply at the pond must be maintained.

Hyk said the amount of water in the aquifer is unknown, as is the number of ways it could become contaminated by industrial activity, but the pond contains a huge amount of water that was potable until recently. Noting that the Searsport side of the pond is lined with camps while Prospect’s shore remains undeveloped, Hyk said Searsport and the utility have mounted only a “failed, half-hearted defense of the integrity of Half Moon Pond from a variety of encroachments. Existing ordinances have not been aggressively enforced by the town, and management practices of the pond and watershed have left a lot to be desired.”

Opponents of the bill included William Shorey, chairman of the utility trustees. Shorey said while there is no plan to sell shoreland to pay off the cost of the wells, keeping the pond as is would be pointless. “It makes no sense to drill wells and then spend additional money to preserve the purity of a product that hasn’t been pure for years and to prevent the use of a resource for public recreation,” he said. “This bill takes extreme measures. It shows a lack of understanding.”

Searsport Selectman Stetson Hills rebutted the charge that his board has refused to meet with Prospect officials to iron things out and criticized the neighboring town for claiming ownership of an aquifer that he said belongs to all.

Rep. Walter Whitcomb of Waldo blasted the bill as “an attempt to strike back by those who are unhappy with the resolution we reached last session. The residents of these towns are getting the first decent glass of water they’ve had in years. These are groundless allegations about selling the shoreland. Let the towns get together and reach an agreement, but I urge you to kill this bill.”

The bill also is opposed by the Maine Public Utilities Commission, which says the requirement to keep Half Moon Pond ready as a future source is unrealistic and prohibitively expensive to ratepayers. The committee will hold a work session on the bill Thursday.