BELFAST – The $1 million Swan Lake Avenue sewer extension is ready to go. All it needs is customers.

City Manager Terry St. Peter said the city had hoped to have it up and running last month but that situations beyond the city’s control will prevent potential users from connecting to the sewer until spring.

St. Peter said the delay was caused by the failure to reach a contractual agreement between the city and the major customer the extension primarily was designed to serve. He said Jerry Douglass, owner of Swan Lake Estates mobile home park, still was mulling over the agreement.

Along with putting the agreement on hold, Douglass has yet to undertake sewer construction within the trailer park that must be addressed before the connection can be made.

“We have a sewer line that doesn’t have any sewage,” St. Peter said Thursday. “It’s in their court. If he wants to use it, he’s welcome to use it.”

He said the city has mailed letters to the other property owners along the line informing them of the upgrade and advising them to contact city hall for information about connecting to the sewer.

The sewer was funded with $600,000 from city coffers and a $400,000 Community Development Block Grant. The block grant was awarded because the project was designed to assist the low-income residents of the trailer park. The park’s existing sewer system has been in conflict with water quality rules for years.

The current system consists of a series of sewer lines connecting individual trailers to open lagoons on the banks of the Goose River. The Department of Environmental Protection has recorded instances where effluent from the lagoons has found its way into the river.

Although the DEP has expressed its concerns for some time, the agency has been reluctant to close the trailer park down because such action would result in the dislocation of its primarily low-income residents. The park is licensed for 48 mobile homes and there are approximately 35 on the property.

“The original impetus for this sewer extension was to provide an alternate means of sewer disposal for the park, since the park was threatened to be closed because it was in violation of pollution laws,” St. Peter informed the City Council last week. “The DEP has held off enforcement of the pollution violation, because they knew that the city was putting in an extension.”

When he updated the council on the situation, St. Peter noted that the city was still waiting for Douglass to sign a contract committing him to keep the park’s rents at levels affordable for low-income people.

He said if Douglass agreed to maintain the low rents, the city would waive the $75,000 recapture fee. Under the contract, the fee would be deferred over a 10-year period at a rate of $7,500 per year.

“The other piece is the actual connection of the mobile home park’s internal sewage system to the city’s new system,” St. Peter informed the council. “We understand the engineering plans of the park have been done, but as of the moment, none of the work has started.”

St. Peter said he had been in contact with A.E. Hodsdon, the engineering firm Douglass hired to design the internal system, and hoped to schedule a meeting with all the involved parties shortly. He said the city needed assurance that any plan would be suitable for its system.

“Our sewer line is done and we are ready to take sewage. There is no indication that Swan Lake Estates is ready to discharge sewage,” said St. Peter. “We need a plan and we need to be able to inspect the system.”