PRESQUE ISLE – Sewer district officials are rounding an important corner for their $5 million project to relocate a discharge pipe from a local stream to a nearby river.

After more than three years of planning, studies and reviews, the Presque Isle Sewer District is down to the last few tasks it needs to complete so that the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Rural Development can act upon its application for enough grant and loan funding to cover project costs.

Officials hope to build a gravity pipeline from the district’s wastewater treatment plant on Dyer Street to a spot on the Aroostook River near the Route 1 bridge. Right now, the discharge pipe goes to the Presque Isle Stream.

The new pipe, which officials are estimating should be 3 feet in diameter and run about 7,000 feet, would allow the Presque Isle Sewer District to bring a local body of water back up to its Department of Environmental Protection water quality standards.

Officials just completed the latest step in the funding process Wednesday night when they held a public hearing on the funding application.

Stephen Freeman, district superintendent, said Thursday that nobody attended the public hearing, but that officials can move forward to the next step in the application process.

An environmental review has been completed and is available for public examination at the USDA office in Presque Isle. Local residents have until mid-May to submit public comments.

After that, Freeman said Rural Development officials will look over the review and comments and decide whether to act upon the district’s application.

Freeman said the pipeline project has been in the works since 2002, when the Department of Environmental Protection required the district to remove its discharge pipe from the Presque Isle Stream during the summer season, from June to September.

Freeman said that although the wastewater is treated to a high level before being discharged, it still contains nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which promote the growth of algae, which, in turn, depletes oxygen in the water.

Water quality surveys indicated that was contributing to the stream’s failure to meet its water quality classification.

Officials determined the most feasible way to fix the problem was to build the new pipeline. Preliminary studies were under way in 2004, but the project hit a two-year delay when officials learned they had to conduct archaeological surveys.

The DEP originally gave the sewer district until 2007 to complete the project, but has since extended it. Last year, officials obtained permits from the DEP and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build the new pipeline. Now they are waiting on the funding.

Freeman said that as part of the application, USDA officials would determine how much grant and loan money to award. He said that local rate-payers would have to bear the costs of loan funding for the project.

If the funding is approved before fall, Freeman said construction, which will take two years, could get under way this building season and reach completion in 2008.

If further reviews need to be done or if the application is not approved before fall, however, Freeman said the project likely would not reach completion until 2009.