LINCOLN, Maine — Crews have begun connecting West Broadway businesses to Bangor Natural Gas Co. pipelines while the company plans a downtown expansion that might be anchored by the town’s three schools, officials said Monday.
Bangor Gas crews are installing the second phase of a $7.5 million plan to bring natural-gas service to most of Lincoln and expect to finish next month. Work began last month on Phase Two, the connection of one business on River Road and 11 West Broadway businesses to Phase I gas lines installed between the Chester town line and Lincoln Paper and Tissue LLC off West Broadway, said Andrew Barrowman, Bangor Natural Gas’ manager of sales and marketing.
“We are still out there running services,” Barrowman said Monday. “We will be out there for awhile.”
Phase Three, the extension of gas lines beyond Lincoln Paper onto Main Street and into downtown, could begin next year, Barrowman said.
The multi-phased plan is crucial to Lincoln’s plans to diversify and grow the town’s economy while helping keep the tissue mill competitive, town officials have said. West Broadway has businesses that employ more than 800 people and River Road will be a prime location for light-industrial development when town officials complete plans to run sewer lines there.
Bangor Natural Gas finished Phase One a year ago by installing two pipelines that run into Lincoln from a spur off a natural gas pipeline in nearby Mattamiscontis Township. That main pipeline once ran jet fuel from Searsport to the Loring Air Force Base in Limestone.
Of the two Lincoln pipelines, one is a steel, high-pressure line that delivers natural gas from the pipeline connection near Interstate 95 to Lincoln Paper and Tissue LLC and a natural gas substation near the tissue manufacturer. The other is a smaller plastic line that sends gas under lower pressure to the businesses and residences along West Broadway.
So far, about a dozen businesses have signed up for the service, Barrowman said.
RSU 67 Facilities and Transportation Director David Ham has had preliminary discussions with Bangor Gas officials about connecting Mattanawcook Academy, Mattanawcook Junior High School and Ella P. Burr School to Phase Three of line construction.
School officials are still studying the issue, said Keith Laser, superintendent of RSU 67, the school district that serves Chester, Lincoln and Mattawamkeag.
“We were going to get some other inputs because of the price,” Laser said Monday. “It might not be worth the money at the time to make that conversion.”
Natural gas prices have remained relatively stable with occasional spikes, while the price of No. 2 heating oil has fallen sharply. As of Aug. 27, the statewide average cash price for No. 2 heating oil was $2.08 per gallon, down another 9 cents from two weeks previous. The average statewide price in October 2014 was about $3.40 per gallon, according to the Governor’s Energy Office, which monitors heating prices.
The average price in the Bangor region, according to maineoil.com, was $1.94 per gallon as of Monday.
The construction of the Phase Three lines, branching from West Broadway to the airport, Main and Fleming streets and part of Route 2, would cost about $2 million and, if all goes well, would start in 2016, officials have said.
Bangor Gas is preparing cost estimates for that phase, Barrowman said.
The other phases are expected to continue until the end of the decade.