PORTAGE LAKE, Maine — After visitors over the July Fourth holiday left overflowing trash cans at Portage Lake’s public beach, town officials are considering whether to adopt a carry in, carry out policy, according to Town Manager Larry Duchette.
Portage Lake’s Parks and Public Works employees spent the Monday after the long holiday weekend cleaning up trash that accumulated around the five trash cans at the Portage Lake public beach — including household trash from area camp owners, Duchette said.
“It’s a yearly problem, especially over the Fourth it seems to be the worst of it,” Duchette said. “They seem to get overfilled when we have a long weekend.”
No trash ended up in the lake, but the cleanup took up time from town employees and the trash cans are meant for day visitors to the public beach, not camp owners and renters, Duchette said.
He said town staff caught several people in the process of leaving household trash in the cans and intervened.
The town manager said he’ll be bringing up the issue at the town’s next Select Board meeting and asking if selectmen want to adopt a carry in, carry out policy at the beach. That would require day visitors to take home with them any garbage they create, and would remove the temptation for area camp owners and renters to leave their garbage there, he said.
Duchette noted that the town of St. Agatha previously dealt with a similar program until adopting a carry in, carry out policy.
Camp owners and renters in the area can hire trash haulers DDR in Ashland or Saucier’s in Eagle Lake to take away their garbage, Duchette said.
In other Portage Lake news, Duchette said the town will be sending out property tax bills this month after the rate is set by the Select Board. Duchette said the rate will likely come with an approximately 1.5 percent increase in the mill rate, stemming from changes in the state’s business equipment tax exemption, the county taxes and the school district budget.
The rate would likely be set at $14.95 per $1,000 of property value, which would be a slight increase after four years of the rate going down, Duchette said.
Also, while the town government didn’t incur major costs from the spring ice storm, a number of camp owners are still cleaning up from it, he said. Some camps were lifted off their foundation and many of those owners will be aiming to reset them on foundations on higher ground.
