The Presque Isle Utilities District is working major projects on Parson’s Street and at the Skyway Industrial Park this summer and fall, while also tending to some smaller jobs.
On Monday morning, Presque Isle commuters dealt with a small section of Main Street being narrowed from four to two lanes, as a Presque Isle Utilities District crew fixed a valve leak.
The leak was detected in July and crews with utilities district were waiting for a time when Theresa’s Corner Cafe was closed to minimize disruption, said Frank Kearney, superintendent of the quasi-municipal water agency.
“The valves will sometimes leak due to age,” Kearney said.
During the work, 20 customers were without water between 8 a.m. and noon, Kearney said. The crews were set to finish by around 3 p.m. and leave a temporary gravel top in the road for several days before repaving the section, he added.
Meanwhile, the district and its contractor, Madawaska-based Ed Pelletier & Sons, are in the midst of a $2 million pipe replacement project in the Parson’s Street corridor, coinciding with a repaving of the roadway.
The project also includes a new, higher-pressure water connection pipe for the Skyway Industrial Park, where a new Maine Army National Guard facility will be built, and for two housing communities in the area. The new connection to the Industrial Park will replace a nearly 70-year-old cast iron pipe serving the former Air Force Base and it will allow the utilities district to retire the use of an old water storage tower, which also is now used as a cell tower.
At the current rate, the utilities district crews are expected to be out of Parson’s Street by the 3rd week of September, and the Maine Department of Transportation will then decide whether to fill the sections this fall or wait until the spring.
“It’s progressing slightly behind schedule,” Kearney said of the Parson’s Street work.
Partly, that’s due to the nature of the water and sewer infrastructure projects. “It’s sometimes hard to tell how you’re going to put it all back together when you take it apart,” he said.
Area contractors like Pelletier also are facing a labor challenge this summer.
“They just don’t have enough machine operators or common laborers,” Kearney said.
The Parson’s Street project is part of the utility district’s 10 year work plan — a long-term plan to maintain, replace or fix Presque Isle’s water infrastructure, Kearney said. Parson’s Street had seen about 10 water leaks in the last decade when the piping was due for replacement, he added.
The project is being financed through the Maine state revolving loan fund, an infrastructure loan program that lets local government agencies borrow at 1 percent interest rates, Kearney said.
