CALAIS – The city has offered a local businessman $600,000 for his 43-acre parcel near the Industrial Park on Route 1. If an agreement is reached, the city plans to use the site for a new water system.

Now it is up to Larry Mahar to decide whether he will accept the nearly $14,000-an-acre purchase price.

Mahar and city officials have been negotiating for months, and after the City Council met Thursday night in executive session, most of the members of the council voted to offer Mahar that amount.

Councilor Ferguson Calder made the motion and Councilor Nancy Gillis seconded it. The offer was contingent on both water quantity and quality tests being met. Councilor Earl Jenson and Mayor Eric Hinson voted in favor of the motion. Councilors Joyce Maker and Alan Dwelley opposed the measure.

Maker asked that the reason for her no vote be included in the minutes. “I oppose this vote due to us not yet receiving a formal appraisal,” she said.

For years, the city has looked for a source to replace the drinking water it now purchases from St. Stephen, New Brunswick. For many years, that water has been piped across the Ferry Point Bridge, but a change in U.S. clean water standards has forced Calais to look elsewhere for its water.

The city has searched for alternatives and the councilors thought they had found a site at the nearby Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge. But the federal government backed out of a tentative agreement after the city had spent more than $300,000 for test wells. Federal officials feared they would set a precedent by allowing the city to take water from federal lands.

City officials hoped to recoup that money and on Thursday night, they learned that U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins had announced that $500,000 in funding for the city’s new water system had been included in a 2002 Appropriations Bill. The bill is now headed for the president’s signature.

After the federal government turned them down, the city cast about for other water sources and finally entered into negotiations with Mahar.

Although the proposed site is not far from the St. Croix River, early tests seem to indicate that the aquifer into which the city has drilled is separate from the river.

On Friday, Porter said he could not discuss what had transpired during the executive session, but he did say councilors had asked him to establish some water quantity and quality guidelines before the city will hand over the check.

“There are important conditions that there be adequate water, which I deem to be around one-half million gallons a day, and also that the water be of a suitable quality and up to state standards,” he said. “If the state says we have to treat it, then it’s not acceptable.”

Porter said the city plans to begin a 30-day pump test within the next few weeks. After that, it will have a better understanding of both the quality and quantity of the available water.