The time has come for the people of Mount Desert to take notice of the debacle that is being thrust upon us. That being the project to close the Otter Creek sewerage treatment plant and pipe the waste to Seal Harbor. But before going into that subject, for those of you who may be confused by this whole situation, the sewer user fee issue is a separate one.

This project, needed to bring the plant into compliance, is a poorly thought out scheme, as many of you already suspect, and will cost all of the taxpayers of Mount Desert equally and dearly (the real cost may be close to $5 million) and the myriad of potential problems this project will create.

At present, the Otter Creek plant is the simplest, most efficient, least expensive, problem free facility (with the exception of the lack of maintenance going on there) of the four we have in town. Ask yourself if you ever knew the Otter Creek plant even existed, it has been very trouble free, with few exceptions.

Here are some of the issues that you as taxpayers should consider:

At present, if there were to be an equipment failure at Otter Creek, we would still have primary treatment with the large settling basin that is there. Under the proposal set forth by the engineers, with a pump replacing the treatment plant, a breakdown would result in raw sewerage flowing straight into the ocean at Otter Creek. Another consideration is the fact that at present the waste water flows into the Otter Creek plant totally by gravity – think about how much electricity will be required to pump the waste over Day Mountain.

The size of the pipeline is another issue of concern. Although the engineers will be allowing for some expansion in future volume, the very nature of this project prevents too large a pipe as the present volume of waste limits the size. This does not bode well for the future development of Otter Creek, which will be limited by how much waste can be pumped through the pipeline. We certainly do not have any way of knowing how much development might conceivably take place in the future as there is a considerable amount of developable land left in this village.

Consider the physical job of digging a four-foot deep, four-foot wide trench three miles to Seal Harbor. Digging up through Otter Creek will entail cutting off and repairing existing sewer lines, not to mention disruption, inconvenience, and damage to our roadbed. Say goodbye to a smooth road. The town recently spent tens of thousands of dollars to rebuild the road from Otter Creek to Seal Harbor.

Looking at the pipeline raises some troubling questions in itself. It will either have to be laid under the Loop Road-Ocean Drive or under the bridge at the overpass with Route 3 It will then have to go under Hunters Brook. One would have to know this area to appreciate the problems associated with this scheme. We can be sure that sometime in the future there will be breaks and-or problems with the pipeline. Hunters Brook is the low point between Otter Creek and Seal Harbor. It doesn’t take that much imagination or knowledge to realize that at sometime or other there will be raw sewerage running down Hunters Brook.

The pipeline from Otter Creek will connect to the existing sewer somewhere in Seal Harbor, presumably at Lower Dunbar or at the intersection of Route Three and the Jordan Pond Road. This pipeline was not designed or sized to handle the volume that will be coming from Otter Creek, especially in times of high flow. Remember that Blackwoods alone can have 300 families when full, not to mention the flow from Otter Creek. Now stop and think what will happen if there is an obstruction or a break in the existing sewerline below where Otter Creek’s pumped waste water enters the system. Some residents on Main Street in Seal Harbor could have their toilets blown off the floor. It boggles the mind to consider what damage could be done by the volume of waste that will come into their homes. Those of you with any experience know it is wise to imagine the worst because eventually it is likely to happen.

Then the pumped wastewater enters the Seal Harbor plant, which creates another series of problems, not the least of which is the fact that in times of low flow the wastewater settling in the three-mile pipeline will have gone septic (this happens when the wastewater is devoid of oxygen). To counteract this we are going to construct a separate aeration chamber to re-aerate the waste. This will require an air pump running nearly constantly.

Finally, the Department of Environmental Protection has now informed the town that we must extend the Seal Harbor outfall 400 feet (remember that avoiding the extension of the Otter Creek outfall was part of the reason for starting this project) or we could endanger use of the Seal Harbor beach.

Once done this project cannot be undone. To avoid spending approximately $670,000 to extend the Otter Creek outfall they intend to spend far more to pump the waste to Seal Harbor. The $4 million bond that we voted will not begin to cover the cost of this project. For example, the proposed extension to the Seal Harbor outfall was not included in this bond nor, it appears, was the aeration chamber. Total expenses for this project will likely be way over budget, maybe even approaching five million dollars, and the savings promised from closing the Otter Creek treatment plant will never materialize. It is time to stop this nonsense now.

Dennis L. Smith is a resident of Otter Creek and for seven years was the superintendent of the four Mount Desert wastewater treatment plants.