FRENCHVILLE, Maine – Town officials will update residents on wastewater and stormwater projects as well as adopting general assistance ordinance appendices during an upcoming public hearing.
Frenchville Town Manager David Cyr said the hearing will give the town an opportunity to provide the latest information on these projects, their budgets, and to explain why they’re needed while giving residents a chance to comment.
The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m., Sept. 25 at the Frenchville Community Center.
For the stormwater project, Cyr said the town started looking into its watersheds last year after the state saw significant flooding. He said the flooding in Bethel last December particularly inspired the town to look into preventing a similar incident.
“With all the damage they saw down there, we recognized that we also had vulnerabilities,” he said.
The town reached out to the University of Maine at Orono, and a team of senior engineering students measured and studied the town’s culverts and watersheds for their capstone project. The students found that if a 100-year flood event were to occur, or a flood with a one percent chance of happening, it would cause significant structural damage.
The town has since applied for, and received, two $200,000 municipal stream crossing grants from the Maine DOT. Cyr said they will use this money to have an engineer take the information received from the UMaine study and put a project together.
The project includes upgrading the Gagnon Brook stream crossings at Pelletier Avenue and Starbarn Avenue as well as upgrading the brook’s watershed drainage system. It also involves upgrades to Church Avenue where it crosses the Dickey Brook and Daigle Brook streams, as well as upgrades to the Church Avenue stormwater system.
Cyr said the initial project cost estimate when they unsuccessfully submitted a grant application to the Northern Border Regional Commission was $1.4 million. This includes the $400,000 they already received from Maine DOT.
Looking ahead, he said the town is seeking other grants to close the funding gap. They have had conversations with the Maine Emergency Management Agency about getting money for the remaining amount, however it will likely require a local match.
For the wastewater work, Cyr said the town has already replaced a defective force main and removed sludge from their aeration basins. They’ve also completed a fiscal sustainability plan and climate adaptation plan.
“Both of those two plans indicated that our next step should be to evaluate pump station number one,” he said. “That pump station has not been upgraded in about 30 years.”
Cyr said the current pump still works, but an upgrade would let the town automate the alarm system, which would help save time and resources when responding to emergencies.
“Right now, it just shows you that there’s an alarm and doesn’t tell you anything else,” he said. “With our other pump stations, you’re able to determine what that alarm is without directly going to the pump station. Then you can make a call whether you need to get there right away, or if you have an hour.”
The estimated cost for this project is about $250,000. Between funding from the Department of Environmental Protection and leftover monies received from the Environmental Protection Agency via congressionally directed spending for two other municipal projects, Cyr said the town should have enough money to cover the costs.
“We’re hoping that will be enough to complete the study and then do the recommended upgrades,” he said. “But if there is not enough money there, at that point we’ll have to go to the ratepayers and the taxpayers.”
The hearing will also include the adoption of 2024-2025 general assistance ordinance appendices A-F and H.
“The appendices tell us what your limits are for spending, income limits, and how much we can spend for different things,” Cyr said. “Those get updated annually, so we have to adopt those appendices.”
He said that the Department of Health and Human Services updates their general assistance manual once every two to three years, and that the hearing will also cover those updates.
