LINCOLN – Fire Chief Phil Dawson returned to work Monday after several weeks’ absence dealing with an undisclosed ailment.

Dawson, who also serves as Howland’s volunteer fire chief, said he had about a week of catch-up work to do to make up for his absence, but that he felt fine.

Dawson, 52, of Howland was at work in Lincoln on March 20 when he experienced what he called a medical issue. He declined to discuss it specifically. Dawson spent the night at Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln before being released the next day, he said.

Already Howland’s volunteer chief, Dawson assumed control of the Lincoln Fire Department’s 45 part-time, on-call firefighters plus seven full-time engineers in August 2006. He retired from the state police at that time after 24 years on that job.

Dawson spent 27 years as a military firefighter, had been a volunteer firefighter since he was 14, and also has done ambulance service work.

He and Lisa Goodwin, Lincoln’s interim town manager, said others filled in capably for Dawson during his absence. They included Police Chief William Flagg and the department’s full-time engineers.

AUGUSTA – Central Maine Power Co. has completed the latest of a series of upgrades to its electricity delivery system serving communities in Piscataquis County.

From dawn until dusk on Saturday, May 3, substation and line workers, some from as far away as York County, installed new equipment at the utility’s Guilford substation.

“This substation work – which was completed without interrupting service to customers – will reinforce our system and improve reliability in Piscataquis County,” John Carroll, CMP spokesman, said in a press release.

“It’s hard to measure the results of a project like this, because it’s intended to prevent interruptions, so you’re counting on things not happening. However, residential and business customers from Dover-Foxcroft to Greenville and up both sides of Moosehead Lake will be less likely to experience interruptions from events such as lighting strikes or problems with equipment inside the substation,” he said.

Work on the project began weeks earlier when crews put mobile substations and other equipment into place to keep the power flowing while the Guilford substation was taken out of service, Carroll said.

The work comes about a year after CMP completed a new transmission line between the Guilford and Dover-Foxcroft substations. The line has greater capacity and new fault-detection equipment that allows crews to quickly locate and fix problems should they occur, Carroll said.

“These upgrades are part of an estimated $160 million in system investments CMP plans to make in 2008,” Carroll said.