Buckfield Water Company awarded $425,000 grant

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.