Houlton council to decide fate of water protection ordinance

HOULTON – After a three-week delay, the Town Council is scheduled tonight to decide whether to enact an ordinance crafted to further protect the town’s drinking water from any potentially crippling contamination.

The council will meet at 6:30 p.m.

Late last month, the board postponed the potential adoption of the ordinance for another three weeks to give the public additional time to ask questions about the proposal.

The delay came after several residents raised questions about the ordinance during the meeting.

The protection zone is centered on the McPartland Wells, a major water source for the town located on U.S. Route 2 neighboring the Meduxnekeag River.

There are several homes in the area of the wells, in addition to a gravel pit.

Officials are most concerned about protecting the water source from contaminants that could threaten it, such as a fuel or gasoline spill.

The McPartland Wells were added in 1960 to supplement the Burleigh Well, once a high-capacity water source for the municipality.

Around 1975, however, the Burleigh Well was shut down because of an increasing threat of contamination from the town’s old landfill.

The planning board has worked diligently on the protection ordinance for about four years, crafting the wording and studying template ordinances from other towns to develop a proposal it feels is right for Houlton.

Under the terms of the ordinance, no action in Zone 1 of the protected area can be undertaken without a permit. However, there is a provision in the ordinance that grandfathers certain uses when the council adopts the ordinance.

Violators will face escalating fines for each incident.

The planning board held a public hearing last May but did not receive many public comments on the proposed ordinance.

The bulk of the questions posed to councilors during last month’s hearing came from Torrey Sylvester, an attorney for the Lawrence Gough family. The Goughs, who live in Hodgdon but farm on land in Houlton, said they were not notified about last May’s public hearing, and Sylvester said they were concerned about the ordinance’s potential impact on their operation.

The family has been farming a 48-acre parcel in Houlton since 1943. Six to 8 acres of that land would be influenced by the ordinance.

The Goughs wanted to be sure that they could continue their farming operation once the ordinance was in place.

Municipal attorney Stephen Nelson told councilors that a condition in the mandate would allow the Goughs to continue their present work uninterrupted after the ordinance is adopted.

Like other residents who could be affected by the ordinance, Nelson said the Goughs would need to complete a present-use form and submit it to the town. Such reports will help the town sketch a blueprint of how land in the protected area is being used. Applicants then would be granted a present-use permit to continue their operations.

Additional concerns, including questions about the potential sale of land in the protected area, also were raised by residents during the meeting.

Officials have estimated that it would cost more than $6 million to create a new water source for the town should the McPartland Wells be contaminated.