Question 2: Bond issue

Do you favor an $18,300,000 bond issue to support drinking water programs and to support the construction of wastewater treatment facilities that will leverage $49,500,000 in other funds?

To Steve McLaughlin, the ballot question on bonds for sewer and drinking water systems is about more than just the environment.

It’s also about jobs.

“A vote for the environmental bonds is a vote for better water quality and a better economy for the communities that can improve their infrastructure,” said McLaughlin, a Department of Environmental Protection employee who helps administer water-related grants and loans to communities. “Without decent infrastructure, communities cannot grow.”

On June 12, Maine voters will be asked whether they want to approve $18.3 million in bonds for improvements to wastewater treatment and sewer and drinking water systems throughout the state. A second, $113 million bond question for transportation projects also will appear on the ballot.

The environmental bonds would be distributed in the following way:

. $12 million to largely rural towns in need of new or upgraded wastewater treatment or sewer infrastructure. Likely recipients include Machias, Indian Township, Presque Isle, Calais, Ellsworth, and the Limestone, Loring and Caribou region.

. $2.9 million in low-interest loans for large pollution control programs. Likely recipients of this money include Bangor, Augusta, Auburn, Baileyville, Old Orchard Beach, Paris, Portland and Westbrook.

. $3.4 million in low-interest loans to towns planning to improve or upgrade their drinking water systems. A partial list of likely recipients includes Newport, Milo, Vinalhaven, Madawaska, Camden-Rockland, Calais, Presque Isle and the Passamaquoddy Water District.

While voters would be authorizing $18.3 million in state borrowing, the bonds would open the door to Maine communities receiving nearly $50 million in federal matching dollars for the projects. But even that would address only a small portion of the estimated $315 million needed to pay for necessary upgrades and construction projects over the next five years, according to the DEP.

In many cases, the grants would go to smaller communities that would be unable to complete the costly, yet necessary, projects without state and federal assistance, said McLaughlin, an engineering manager with the DEP who administers the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.

Machias is one of those communities.

Machias is slated to receive approximately $2 million in grants to help the town continue working to fix contamination problems that have forced the closure of local clam flats and sparked other pollution problems.

During storms, runoff flows into the sewers that flow into the town’s wastewater treatment facility, often overwhelming the 32-year-old plant.

“When we have a rain event and the plant cannot handle all of the water, the untreated [sewage] basically goes down the river,” said Betsy Fitzgerald, the Machias town manager.

The town has been working to separate its combined sewer overflow system for the past four years in several phases. The $2 million grant would help pay for an aeration system at the treatment plant that would help kill dangerous pathogens in the wastewater, Fitzgerald said.

Without the grant, Fitzgerald said, the projects likely would be cost-prohibitive, at least in her lifetime.

The low-interest loans also have been key to towns and cities completing costly system upgrades. Over the life of the loan, towns can save up to 20 percent in interest costs.

The city of Bangor, for instance, has received more than $33 million in Clean Water State Revolving Fund loans since 1991. Those loans helped the city add several additional treatment steps at the city’s facility, resulting in significantly cleaner discharges into the Penobscot River, said Andrew Rudzinski, pretreatment coordinator and safety officer at the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

Today, the treated wastewater, known as “effluent,” being discharged into the Penobscot is, in many respects, cleaner than the water flowing by the treatment plant.

Rudzinski, the past president of the Maine Wastewater Control Association, which represents treatment plants throughout the state, echoed McLaughlin’s sentiments about the ties between clean water and the economy.

Pollution tied to wastewater affects a wide swath of the Maine economy, from commercial lobstermen to developers and people who make a living taking non-Mainers fishing for trout, smallmouth bass or stripers in state rivers.

Speaking hypothetically, Rudzinski asked whether Bangor could ever redevelop its downtown waterfront if the Penobscot gave off an offensive smell or was covered with unsightly foam, both tied to insufficiently treated wastewater.

“Great sections of the economy depend on clean water,” Rudzinski said.

Voters last approved a bond package for wastewater and drinking water projects in 2005. In recent years, legislators have authorized an environmental ballot question either every year or once every two years.