CORINNA — Dexter councilors Thursday granted a request from the Corinna Sewer District to develop a comprehensive water management plan for Lake Wassookeag in Dexter.

Dexter Town Manager Steve Whitesel told councilors that Corinna was willing to pay for the study and Dexter would be able to choose who they would like to do the engineering. The main purpose of the plan would be to study the effect of different levels of the lake on the ecosystem.

Tom Todd, Corinna district superintendent, said the proposal was in answer to the situation during the past several years where Corinna officials have had to ask Dexter for increased water flow to maintain their mandated effluent rate at the sewer district’s waste water plant.

At emergency meetings in both the fall of 1992 and 1993, Corinna officials found that the water levels had dropped so drastically at the Corrundel Bog because of the dry season that plant personnel were having difficulty maintaining the effluent rate of 10 cubic feet per second required by the Environmental Protection Agency. Corrundel Bog is fed by the north branch of the Sebasticook River which originates at Lake Wassookeag in Dexter.

In both 1992 and 1993, Dexter officials agreed to have a siphon installed at the lake’s dam so that water could be pumped into Sebasticook Stream to increase downstream flow and replenish the bog.

Todd said he would like to set up a meeting to discuss the hiring of an engineering firm to draw up a comprehensive water management plan to determine what effect such drawdowns have on the lake.

The inability of Corinna to secure increased use of Lake Wassookeag water could only solved by expensive corrective projects, Todd said. If effluent flow from the treatment plant could not be met, he said, the district would have to consider installing a tertiary system which would cleanse further the effluent and result in a decreased effluent rate, but also would likely cost the district millions. The other alternative was to install a spray irrigation system, which also would be costly.

Dredging Corrundel Bog to increase the storage capacity of the reservior also could cost millions, he said.

Later in the meeting, Galen Wentworth, chairman of the Dexter Utility District, reminded everyone that the public drinking water system in Dexter will no longer be fed by pumping from the lake, but by a gravity feed as a result of the construction of the new pumping station.