EAST MILLINOCKET – Motorists may experience some temporary inconvenience when construction on a new $1 million sewer and water project begins early next week.

Administrative Assistant Mary Morris said the town’s contractor, McGillan Inc. of Fort Fairfield, plans to begin laying new water lines along the western portion of Main Street during the week of May 6.

Morris said the contractor expects to maintain two-way traffic flows throughout the project and does not expect any detours off Main Street. She said the town will temporarily lose some parking spaces in the work area. The contractor plans to keep dust to a minimum.

“It’s going to mean that traffic is not going to be flowing quite as quickly through Main Street and there may be some periods when it is a little difficult to get out into the traffic,” she said.

Work along Main Street will be done in phases. About 1,300 feet of new water line will be installed on the north or the business side of the street. Morris said the water line installation is expected to take about three weeks. She said no interruption in water service is expected.

Once that part of the project is completed, construction crews will move across the street to the southern side, which is closest to Great Northern Paper, to begin laying new sewer line.

From there, crews will begin laying new sewer lines on Cone and Pine Streets, said Morris. She said there will be no through traffic on those streets, except to residents and emergency vehicles, while crews are working.

Fred McGillan of McGillan Inc. said crews will have to do some blasting work in the Pine and Cone Street areas. He said the location of the new sewer line requires excavating ledge.

Morris said the contractor expects the project to be substantially completed by Sept. 3 and the final paving to be done by Oct. 3. Once the new lines are laid, temporary paving will be put down and when the entire project is complete, final pavement will be placed.

Morris said the contractor cautioned officials during a pre-construction conference last week that there could be delays in receiving pipe.

McGillan said manufacturers are having a problem getting resin compound, one of the key ingredients in making PVC pipe. He said the demand was increasing, causing a backlog of orders for the PVC sewer pipe. “There could be a problem,” he said. “We think it is going to work out fine and we will be able to get the materials.”

McGillan said another complication is that the manufacturers are not honoring earlier price quotes they made to pipe suppliers, which could affect the project costs. He has yet to receive the new price.

In June 2000, voters authorized selectmen to borrow up to $1 million to make improvements to a portion of the town’s sewer and water system. The project will be financed with a 20-year bond.

Officials said the town needs to upgrade some of its sewer lines to prevent raw sewage from backing up into some residents’ cellars and to keep storm water from infiltrating the sewer system.

The Department of Environmental Protection has put the town on notice about eliminating storm water from its sewer system. The town has until Dec. 31 of this year to complete the work in order to meet the DEP’s deadline.

Earlier engineering studies identified several sources of storm water infiltration and bottlenecks in the sewer system caused by smaller lines feeding into large ones in the areas of Pine and Cone streets. Improvements include replacing the current 6-inch sewer line with new 8-inch lines on Pine and Cone streets and replacing an old 8-inch line on Main Street with a new 12-inch sewer line.

About 4,000 feet of new sewer line will be installed and about 1,300 feet of new 12-inch water line will be installed to replace the existing 6-inch line.

Officials also said the water lines need to be replaced with larger ones to improve water flows for fire protection at the town’s industrial park.