BREWER – In the wake of Eastern Fine Paper Co. closing its doors and the subsequent layoffs of 240 workers, the governor and Sen. Olympia Snowe are working on projects to help the community.

Gov. John Baldacci is donating spaghetti sauce for an April benefit dinner for displaced workers and Snowe is working on a two-year moratorium for mandated sewer work in Brewer, which will give the community time to “get our ducks in a row,” said Ken Locke, director of environmental services.

“Currently we have four years of work still remaining,” Locke said. “All the remaining projects are sewer-storm water separation projects. What this would allow us to do is take a year or two off.

“Eastern Fine is still $1.7 million in debt [to Brewer] and because they’re in Chapter 7 they’re not responsible to pay that so the city is suppose to pick up the responsibility,” he said.

Snowe penned a letter to Robert Varney, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator for New England, on March 25 asking for immediate relief for Brewer.

“At this time, the only way for Brewer to offset the lost revenue [from Eastern closing], pay off what the mill owes the sewer accounts and pay future mill debt payments is for the city to increase the sewer user rate significantly and make drastic cuts in the wastewater budget,” Snowe said in the letter. “If deferred for two years as I propose, Brewer will be able to delay the additional debt service costs associated with completing the work.”

The sewer work is federally mandated under a 1992 consent decree with the EPA. Approximately $2.5 million worth of work remains to be completed. As of Tuesday, the senator’s office had not heard back from Varney.

To help the displaced Eastern Fine and Lincoln Pulp and Paper Co. workers, Baldacci is partnering with Care Development of Maine and Eastern Maine Community College to put on a “A Wicked Good Spaghetti Dinnah” set for 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 7, at Rangeley Hall on the EMCC campus off Hogan Road in Bangor.

“When the mills closed we learned that some of our foster parents in those communities lost their jobs,” said Alicia Nichols, director of development at Care Development of Maine. “We wanted to do something for our families as well as for other affected Bangor and Lincoln millworkers’ families.”

Baldacci is contributing spaghetti sauce from Bangor’s Momma Baldacci’s Italian Restaurant for the dinner. Care Development of Maine is a licensed, private, nonprofit agency that specializes in special needs adoptions, residential care, community-family support and therapeutic foster care.

Tickets, which cost $7 for adults and $3 for children age 10 and under, are on sale for the benefit dinner, which includes entertainment by the Memphis Belles and the Bellhops.

Advance tickets may be purchased in person from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Bangor office of Care Development of Maine, 970 Illinois Ave., or by calling 945-4240.