SWH sewer project almost doubles in cost as some contractors are wary of MDI work

BH’s ‘politically acceptable’ comp plan; region’s waste disposal picture still murky

Window-less building is sewer plant next to Dysart’s Marina

SOUTHWEST HARBOR - You may now add another indignity to our declining quality of life on the island.

Construction companies are not eager to send their equipment and workers here for major infrastructure projects. Expect to pay a huge premium for everything from Acadia National Park maintenance to bringing our water and sewer plants to modern standards.

This week, the town’s water and sewer district finally got a bid after six years - a whopping $10 million above the $15 million design in 2017 to overhaul the 50-year-old sewer plant on Apple Lane which is under a consent decree from the DEP to upgrade. A contingency requirement brought the total price tag to $27 million, which the district board approved on Monday.

The good news is that virtually all the cost will be borne by federal and state grants and low-interest loans.

That will not be the case next year when Bar Harbor seeks bids for its new $58 million school approved by voters in June. That project is expected to be funded largely by local taxpayers.

The architect Harriman Associates will need to sharpen its pencils to deal with inflation, supply chain challenges, worker shortage and the flood of federal infrastructure money which has resulted in busy contractors turning down work.

Then there is the MDI traffic.

SWH’s engineering consultant Olver Associates spoke with three vendors, and only one, Apex Construction of Somersworth, N.H. expressed serious interest. The traffic on the island was a concern for one firm, said William Olver. “They have other projects that were not as constrained with such traffic as you get in the summer getting off the island.”

Three other factors played into the lack of interest, Olver said: Inflation, overwhelmed contractors with plenty of work and the most recent project design which added complexity to the rebuild.

Olver reached out to the three contractors in the region which do the kind of work needed on such plants.

They are competing with contractors in other industries for workers and supply. Olver said he does not see conditions ebbing any time soon.

The Town of Skowhegan managed to pick a contractor who started this summer building its new $75 million school, but architect Stephen Blatt said, “We did a lot of cost estimating prior to going to bid, so we we had a pretty good idea where we would end up.

“But you still never know.”

Skowhegan is in central part of the state and easily accessible off I-95. The contractor, Landry/French, is based in the Portland area.

MDI towns are considering several capital projects in addition to the Bar Harbor School - a $25 million expansion of the high school, an expansion of Tremont Consolidated School and a new town garage in Southwest Harbor. (The Bar Harbor Story reported that the high school project will likely need referendum approval in all the towns it serves.)

Then there are the projects in waiting - a much needed, new public safety building in Bar Harbor - and continued expansion of non-profits such as the hospital, Jackson Labs, MDI Bio Labs, College of the Atlantic and the renovation of Jordan Pond House.

There is no shortage of ideas for construction, even half baked ones.

At a joint meeting Wednesday of the Planning Board and Comprehensive Plan Committee, Bar Harbor PB member Joseph Cough floated the idea that the Town of Mount Desert extend its sewer service to the Village of Town Hill from Northeast Harbor, ala the partnership the towns have for police services.

The QSJ attempted to ask him for more information to determine the seriousness of his proposal but was prevented from doing so by Planning Director Michele Gagnon.

Cough said the high school trustees have considered pumping its waste from the high school to the sewers in Northeast Harbor, which is three times the distance than the Somesville sewer plant also owned by Mount Desert.

The QSJ wanted to ask Cough whether he had confused the two plants.

Mount Desert Town Manager Durlin Lunt confirmed there have been talks about assisting the high school but said he’s unaware of any proposal for Town Hill.

Is Bar Harbor’s comprehensive plan just an excuse for more economic development?

BAR HARBOR - Economic development is the least of this town’s problems.

Yet the Planning Board and Comprehensive Plan Committee spent most of its two-hour joint meeting Wednesday night talking about growth and how to make Salisbury Cove, Hull’s Cove and Town Hill more like Downtown Bar Harbor.

It started when PB member Joseph Cough said the comprehensive plan should give equal weight to economic development as it does trying to solve the housing crisis.

‘I think there's a huge lost opportunity if we can't run two concurrent tracks. We're talking about growing 665 units, and we're leaving out the economic picture of it.”

Cough said he didn’t want to lose sight of growing small stores in Salisbury Cove where households are more year round. “Those are the kinds of things that economic development would hopefully garner and generate,” he said.

Cough didn’t mention he owns 12 lots in a subdivision in Salisbury Cove approved when he was a sitting member of the Planning Board in 2022.

He also didn’t mention that he owns vacation rentals when he said short-term vacation rental “has been proven time and time again people can't afford the taxes” unless they rent their homes during the tourist season. He is on the record as opposing town efforts to reduce STRs, as one of two PB members who voted against the current ordinance.

No doubt some of what Cough claimed was true. But how pervasive is it still? And should the town enact policies to differentiate investors and homeowners?

The QSJ would have asked him if he’s familiar with the likes of BOS Properties LLC, which has 15 licenses for short-term vacation rentals. Assessor records show that BOS acquired nine dwelling units since 2019 and operates them as STRs. Does BOS fall into Cough’s characterization of STR owners who rent because that’s the only way they can afford the town taxes?

Does Cough, who owns at least two STRs, fall into that category himself?

Brian O’Connell, a principal in BOS Properties, did not return my call.

So it went on Wednesday night, another fact-free exchange of the participants’ own prejudices, wants and assumptions. Ruth Eveland pushed for home-based businesses. Jim Mahoney said to throw out the section on non-conforming commercial use in downtown residential areas and “start over.” Cough made it sound like 655 housing units the next five years was attainable, if not a slam dunk.

Even Planning Director Michele Gagnon couldn’t keep her facts straight, saying 36 of the town’s 40 zoning districts allowed lodging. It’s 32. Gagnon pointed to the realities of “political acceptability” in Bar Harbor of any comp plan.

The town owes itself to do the proper due diligence to validate claims by the likes of Cough and hotelier Stephen Coston to determine the true impact of short-term rentals and employee housing.

How many year-round dwelling units have these two sectors displaced over last 10 years?

Start with the assessor online data base where a search for “Witham” returned 26 properties, each with a history of ownership. (Whitham Family is one of the largest hotel operators in town.) You may cross reference that data with licenses for short-term rentals and employee housing. Witham is building a dormitory to house 84 seasonal workers on Kebo Street and pledged to return year-round homes to the town’s housing stock.

But in August 2021, a fire broke out in one of his employee houses on First South Street. Luckily, it occurred when the workers were at their jobs at the Bar Harbor Inn. The Quietside Journal then disclosed that the 15 workers exceeded the maximum allowed occupants.

But even armed with clear data showing the destruction of the year-round residential base, would it make a difference?

RKG Associates Inc. did an excellent job of laying out the challenge in its December 2022 Bar Harbor Housing Analysis. Wednesday night, the housing crisis was already in the rear view mirror. It was barely discussed while the group lost itself in the minutiae of the process.

Fourth delay for incinerator auction: MRC creates new membership for PERC towns

ORRINGTON - The region’s waste management future got murkier this week after the foreclosure auction for the incinerator here was postponed a fourth time, and the rival 115-member Municipal Review Committee offered associate memberships to towns which use the incinerator.

The 53-member Penobscot Energy Recovery Company announced in June it was being auctioned off. This week, the auction was postponed a fourth time, to Oct. 25.

Orrington Town Manager Chris Backman breathed a sigh of relief that the auction wasn’t canceled as that would have indicated PERC was headed for bankruptcy.

The town needs a buyer to restart the plant and not demolish it for scrap. The plant, assessed by the town at about $13 million, owes more than $370,000 in taxes for 2021 and 2022.

The town also has been touting the plant’s energy to lure businesses interested in the development of the Eagle Point Business Park nearby, Blackman said.

Two potential buyers have been in discussion since the summer, Blackman said. If they cannot come to terms, the consequences are stark. Auctions are unpredictable. The winning bid could be for a range of possibilities, including using the plant merely as a transfer station.

Garbage in the region is being hauled to the Juniper Ridge landfill until either the PERC plant reopens or the Hampden plant, which was acquired in July from the MRC, restarts in two years.

The MRC board this week threw the PERC members a lifeline in case that plant goes into bankruptcy. It is offering PERC members an “associate membership” in MRC.

“An associate member would not have any ownership voting rights, rebates or profit sharing,” said MNRC director Michael Carroll.

An associate member would get “discounted fees, MRC representation in legislative and regulatory activities, MRC representation and contract on all matters relating to supply agreements, access to regional and corporate services that we are developing such as tire shredding,” Carroll said.

Blackman said the DEP requires towns to have a contract with a solid waste disposal provider to use state services.

MRC severed its relationship with PERC in 2018 and contracted with Coastal Resources of Maine for a new plant in Hamden using “single sort” technology from Fiberight Corp. A total of 115 towns joined the effort, while 53 remained with PERC.

That plant opened in late 2019 but operated for only seven months until it ran out of cash in May 2020.

Ironically, PERC threw MRC a lifeline as the principal recipient of its waste until it ran into its own operating challenges in 2022.

In July, the Hampden plant was acquired by Innovator Resource Recovery, which was financially back by a multi-billion investment firm, White Oak Global Advisors.

All four towns on MDI are members of MRC, while Ellsworth, Lamoine an Hancock are PERC members.