BUCKFIELD — The Buckfield Village Corporation is a
quasi-municipal organization that provides water from North Pond to 185 homes
clustered around the village center.
As chairman of the board for that organization, more
commonly known to locals as simply “the water company,” Joan G. Pope is
accustomed to fielding a variety of calls.
Sometimes they relate to service, other times billing. But last week Pope received a highly
anticipated, and much needed, call from the office of Senator Olympia Snowe.
Snowe’s office called to inform Pope that the water company
has been awarded funding from a federal Rural Development program in the amount
of $950,000.
The award includes a grant in the amount of $425,000. The remaining amount of $525,000 will come in
the form of a loan from Rural Development.
The loan will have a 4.5 percent interest rate.
This funding was based on an income survey of customers
conducted by water company trustees over the previous winter and spring. After an indifferent response to mailings,
trustees actually went door-to-door to gather the required information.
Pope stated that, based on the income survey, Buckfield
normally should have qualified for a funding formula that would have seen a
split of 75 percent in grants and 25 percent in loans. However, she reports being told by Alden
Turner, of Rural Development’s Lewiston office, that, “money was gone in the
program.”
“And next year they plan to do away with the grant,” she
said.
Because of this lack
of available federal funds Rural Development instead offered a 45/55 split on
the approved funding.
However, even given that the funding was not what some would
have liked, it still could not have come at a better time.
Over the coming year, the water company expects to rebuild
nearly one mile of water pipe through the center of Buckfield village. Pope reported that the Maine Department of
Transportation, which has begun a project to rebuild that road, will not
undertake any construction within the town center until water mains are
rebuilt.
“They can’t do the village until we do what we have to do,”
she said.
These water mains, some originally laid in 1905, run along
Route 117 from the offices of Oxford Networks on the western side of the
village, stopping just short of the Nezinscot River bridge on the eastern side.
The pipes are reportedly in such a state that rebuilding
them is necessary. Maine is not exactly known as a hotbed of
geological activity. However, Pope
reports that a mild earthquake “five years ago” was sufficient to crack the
pipes.
Given past problems, Pope is convinced that blasting by the
highway department will do further damage to the pipes if they are not rebuilt
first. Additionally, water mains run
under houses on the western side of the village, where some blasting is
scheduled to take place. Unless the
lines are rebuilt, and temporary water lines installed, Pope predicts dire
consequences.
“It will flood houses all down the street,” she said.
The water company will conduct a vote on whether or not to
accept the Rural Development funding at their session of August 26. All customers of the water company are
eligible to vote at this meeting.
Pope would like to see a large turnout for that meeting, but
laments that it is not expected. At many
of the water company’s regular meetings, held on the last Thursday of each
month, trustees have been forced to scramble in order to reach a quorum. Eight customers must be present at any
meeting in order for the water company to conduct business.
“I wish they [customers] came to more the meetings,” said
Pope. “I don’t really understand why
they aren’t interested in their water.”
Adding to the interest factor, Pope addressed how vital it
would be for customers to turn out and approve the funding from Rural
Development.
“It will come to a point that if we don’t do it [rebuild the
water mains], the state will do it and charge us whatever it costs them,” she
predicted.
Should such an eventhappen, the Buckfield Village
Corporation would have great difficulty in meeting that commitment. Annual revenues for the water company were
estimated by Pope to be $99,000. Of this
amount, $39,640 is committed to salaries.
Water company salaries, approved at the annual
organizational meeting in March, currently include $300 to each of the three
water commissioners, $200 to the
Commission Chairman, $7,200 to the Clerk/ Treasurer, $28,000 to the Water
Superintendent, and $3,340 for assistants to the superintendent.
Pope stated that the water company does hope to use the
Rural Development funding to also extend the water mains along Route 140 as far
as John D. Long American Legion Post 58.
This will allow developer Gene Bell to tie in the roughly one dozen new
house lots from his subdivision beside the Buckfield Junior/ Senior High
School, resulting in additional revenues for the corporation.
Still, even with the grant, and the promise of new
customers, water company trustees still anticipate going to the Maine Public
Utilities Commission in the coming year for a rate increase.
Pope noted that the water company did not increase rates
when the new filtration system built in 1998.
Even though residents rejected a $1,000,000 project to build the
filtration system and reconstruct the dam on North Pond, work still was
required to avoid a $25,000 a day fine from the Environmental Protection
Agency.
“We used what we had for money and got by,” she noted. “But if they [customers] don’t approve of
this project now, we’ll have to do it later, and borrow it all.”
Assuming that customers vote to accept the Rural Development
funding, the project would then need to be approved by the Maine Public
Utilities Commission. Pine Tree
Engineering of Bath has already completed plans for the project.
Requests for bids would go out to contractors “as soon as
possible.”
According to Pope, water company trustees would like to
complete the section from Oxford Networks to the village center “before
winter.” Work on the section from the
village to the Nezinscot Bridge, and along Route 140, would be completed next
year.
