Penobscot School Eyes Water Meter for Waste System
By Rich Hewitt, Bangor Daily News, Maine, Bangor Daily News, Maine
Dec. 15–Summary: PENOBSCOT — The School Committee plans to budget money next year to buy a water meter for the school’s waste treatment plant. The meter would measure water entering the system and would allow school officials to monitor how much they pump from the
PENOBSCOT — The School Committee plans to budget money next year to buy a water meter for the school’s waste treatment plant.
The meter would measure water entering the system and would allow school officials to monitor how much they pump from the system.
The school system is one of three overboard discharge septic systems licensed to discharge treated waste into Northern Bay.
The state Department of Environmental Protection has urged the school, Penobscot Nursing Home and one private home to find a way to eliminate those overboard discharges.
The school, which serves 69 pupils in kindergarten through eighth grade, is licensed to pump up to 2,500 gallons per day, according to Superintendent Mark Hurvitt. The system was installed in 1984 at the insistence of DEP, when the school population was at least double the current enrollment.
The meter will cost $970, too much for this year’s budget. That amount will be included in the 2006-07 school budget, which will go before voters at the annual town meeting in March.
“We’re trying to get a meter in there so we can know how many gallons we’re pumping,” Hurvitt said Tuesday. “There’s no contesting of us pumping over that [licensed] amount. The state inspector says we’re under, and we believe we’re under. But we all would like to know what we’re dealing with.”
That information will be important if the town agrees to work with the nursing home and the private residence to create a joint in-ground septic system.
Last month, David Breau, an environmental engineer with DEP, suggested that if a large enough site could be found, it might be possible to develop a joint, subsurface system.
The town owns 47 acres behind the elementary school, and the state last month paid for a site evaluator to determine if the site could support a subsurface system.
The town recently received the site report, and according to Selectman Bing Gross, the survey located two sites on the property that were suitable.
“Both of them are quite a long ways from the school,” Gross said Tuesday, adding that it likely would be expensive to develop those sites. He estimated the sites are at least 1,000 feet or more from the school.
One site is larger than the other, Gross said. The larger site probably would be used for the nursing home, he said, while the smaller one might accommodate the school.
The selectmen have not discussed the site report among themselves or with DEP officials and no meeting has been scheduled with the department.
Although selectmen last month indicated a desire to help improve the water quality in Northern Bay, they raised concerns about the costs involved, both in developing the system and then operating it after it was built.
Gross also noted that the nursing home has had continuing problems with its system and has been in violation of its permit on several occasions.
He expressed concern about the town’s liability if the school and nursing home systems were tied together, or if the nursing home was using town property to dispose its waste water.
DEP has a grant program to help deal with overboard discharges around the state, but funding for most grant programs appears to be drying up. Gross said the selectmen probably would not include any funds in next year’s budget for the septic system.
If the plan for a joint system moves ahead, it is unlikely that any work would be done this winter. Design, engineering, and planning could last through the summer, and Gross said it could be into the next year before any work could be done.
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