EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — Town officials are developing plans to allocate as much as $11.4 million to upgrade the town’s water treatment facilities, they said Tuesday.
The town’s goal: To build a new primary water treatment facility and retrofit the town’s secondary plant at the former Great Northern Paper Co. LLC mill site by 2018, town Administrative Assistant Angela Cote said.
To meet water quality standards, treatment typically involves two steps. Primary wastewater treatment removes solids and harmful bacteria from raw sewage. Secondary treatment eliminates the dissolved organic matter that escapes primary treatment, according to the website of the World Bank Group, an international organization that helps governments solve water supply, sanitation, water resource, hydropower and irrigation problems.
The water treated by East Millinocket’s treatment system flows into the Penobscot River.
East Millinocket officials are negotiating with several entities to provide electricity to the secondary plant. The town currently pays for the plant’s electricity through site owner Hackman Capital Partners of Los Angeles, but that agreement will lapse Dec. 31, said Mark Scally, chairman of the Board of Selectmen.
“That was the plan. Their plans could change,” Scally said Tuesday. “I don’t know what Hackman’s end goal is here.”
The town assumed ownership of the bankrupt mill’s secondary wastewater treatment plant in June. U.S. bankruptcy judge Peter Cary granted a motion from bankruptcy trustee Pasquale “Pat” Perrino allowing the plant’s assets to be sold to the town for $1.
Hackman bought the mill for $5.4 million on Dec. 2, 2014. The Katahdin region’s largest single employer and taxpayer, the mill filed for bankruptcy three months before.
As one of the perks of living in a mill town, East Millinocket residents enjoyed for decades paying only a nominal fee for secondary wastewater treatment per an agreement with the mill’s owners. The town has had its own primary plant, which treats wastewater from all town homes and businesses, for 31 years, Scally said.
The mill’s secondary plant is 41 years old, Scally said.
Town plans call for demolishing the old primary plant and retrofitting the secondary as part of spending $11.4 million or $9.9 million on a new wastewater treatment system. The system will cost $11.4 million if leachate from the Dolby landfill is treated there, or $9.9 million if it isn’t, Cote said.
The state took ownership of the Dolby landfill as part of the state’s effort to facilitate Cate Street Capital’s purchase of the mill in 2011. The mill had used the landfill for decades. Now state officials are considering capping the landfill, Scally said.
In the meantime, the Maine Rural Water Association is sending surveys to residents this week to determine whether the town requires low-income assistance to pay for the water treatment upgrades, Cote said.
She encouraged all residents to take the surveys, which she described as critical to town plans to qualify for as much as 90 percent reimbursement on the plant upgrades. Without qualifying, the town expects to get at least a 50 percent reimbursement from the federal government, Cote said.