WINTERPORT – The Board of Selectmen has called a special town meeting to ask voters to raise $5,000 for a legal challenge to the proposed removal of the West Winterport Dam.

The meeting will take place at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, at the Samuel L. Wagner Middle School cafeteria. Other municipal spending measures will be on the warrant for voters to act on as well.

The Atlantic salmon restoration group FISH – Facilitators Improving Salmon Habitat – has applied for a federal permit to remove the dam. The FISH proposal is a contentious issue in town because the dam’s 3-mile impoundment has been used in the past for fire protection. In addition, homes in Winterport and Frankfort border the impoundment and use the waters for recreation.

“The selectmen have been united in their opposition to the dam and they are recommending that residents put money into an attorney to fight it,” town manager Leo LaChance said Wednesday. The selectmen approved the special town meeting warrant at their Tuesday night meeting.

LaChance said board members were approached by Frankfort selectmen to join their opposition to the removal of the dam. Frankfort will decide the date of its special town meeting on Friday, LaChance said.

If approved, the $5,000 will be used to retain the services of Brewer attorney Richard Violette, who is working with Frankfort on the dam case and also is the Winterport town attorney. LaChance said Violette has estimated it could cost upward of $15,000 to contest the FISH proposal.

FISH has the backing of federal and state agencies and is awaiting the approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Public comment for both pending permit applications closed last month. The federal permit could be awarded within a few weeks. A time frame on the DEP permit has not been set and the agency plans to hold a public informational meeting on the matter later this month. A date for that meeting has not been set.

Also on the warrant are appropriation requests for $77,924 from surplus to cover balances approved at town meeting but never raised through taxation; $30,000 for the town’s share of a $356,000 Community Development Block Grant program for sewer and water improvement in the village; $9,461,85 to purchase a new or used skid steer for the Winterport Transfer Station and $4,000 for a personal property tax revaluation program. A skid steer is a hydraulic moving device similar to a front-end loader used to move trash and other transfer station operations.

LaChance said the $77,924 was needed to cover a shortage in the annual assessment of taxes to cover the budget approved by voters in June. He said the assessment did not match the annual budget and the selectmen have proposed taking an additional $77,924 from surplus to balance the budget.

The $30,000 matching funds will be added to a $300,000 commitment from the Winterport Sewer District and a $26,000 commitment from the Winterport Water District to leverage $300,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds. The $656,000 will be used to install new sewer and water lines along Main Street in conjunction with the Department of Transportation’s plan to rebuild Route 1A in the village next spring.

If approved, the personal property re-evaluations will be conducted by an outside consultant, said LaChance.