Milbridge selectmen, officials OK sewer grant forms

MILBRIDGE – Two selectmen scheduled an emergency public meeting Wednesday morning to clarify errors in a grant application due Friday that would partially fund improvements to the federally mandated municipal waste water system.

Selectwoman Pat Pellegrini and Selectman Mike Domrad reviewed the proposal in detail with Town Manager Lewis Pinkham and Jim Frey, who prepared the forms, and approved its final wording to meet the deadline.

The selectmen said Tuesday at a town sewer commission public hearing that they were concerned, as representatives of local residents, that they had not been properly informed about the application.

Pinkham said plans to update the 20-year-old system had been under way for more than two years, that sewer problems had been addressed at many town meetings, and grant applications for federal and state funds had been provided to the selectmen in a timely manner.

Pellegrini said she was not given the latest forms until late last week. “Right now, I can’t endorse the application when it hasn’t been discussed by the selectmen and the public,” she said at Tuesday’s meeting.

The application for the $500,000 grant from through the state’s Community Development Block Grant program had to be submitted by 4 p.m. Friday or the funding would not be available until next year. An additional $125,000 will come from the Department of Environmental Protection, pending CDBG approval. The town already has applied for a $500,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture, but that money will not be available until next year, Pinkham said.

The Environmental Protection Agency has told the town it will withdraw its 301-H waiver allowing effluent discharge from the chlorinator plant into the Narraguagus River on Nov. 1 and additional “secondary” treatment will be needed to clean the wastewater. The EPA has ordered similar measures in Winterport and Rockport.

Project manager Ryan Wingard of Wright-Pierce Engineering in Topsham said in a telephone interview the latest cost estimate for the improvements is $2 million. The original estimate in 2005 was $6 million, according to Pinkham, but the EPA has agreed to a less expensive treatment than the originally proposed ultraviolet cleaning process.

Phase one of the improvements, expected to cost $625,000, will include updating the chlorinator facility, constructing a building to store chemicals and updating the pumping stations. The secondary treatment process, intended mainly to purify grease waste from restaurants, would be done later when funding is available.

Although Pinkham warned at the Tuesday meeting the town could be in violation of the EPA ruling and liable for fines if the system is not upgraded by Nov. 1, Domrad insisted the EPA hearings he attended made it clear that as long as the town shows progress, the agency will give it more time before imposing any penalties.

Pellegrini concluded Tuesday’s meeting by saying, “We all agree that we need it.”