Bristol drops controversial sewer extension to Newfound Lake

BRISTOL — Following through on their promise to voters three years ago, Bristol selectmen voted on March 3 to cancel their plans to extend municipal sewer lines to Newfound Lake. When voters approved spending $20 million on the project in 2019, the selectboard assured them that it would not go forward if grant funding did not make the project affordable.

“The general consensus is that the numbers just don’t line up to be an affordable solution at this point,” selectboard chair Don Milbrand explained.

Underwood Engineering, which has been designing the project, instead recommended a scaled-back project pegged at $16.9 million. Under that plan, the town would extend the sewer on Lake Street by 5,000 feet, carrying it from Millstream Park to the intersection with Riverdale Road; replace the Central Street pumping station; and upgrade 2,500 feet of the downtown force mains.

Milbrand said an economic development grant that the town has received will cover the cost of extending the Lake Street line.

Another $500,000 grant will cover basic repairs to the pumping station, but the board decided to go forward with a full replacement as well as to replace the pressure line leading to Summer Street. Milbrand said of doing the repair work alone that it “would just put a Band-Aid on something that’s going to need to be replaced downline, and it doesn’t address the weak pressure lines, as well.”

To go beyond what grant money would cover will require borrowing $2.9 million, with annual debt payments of about $190,000. Milbrand said the town is considering splitting the payments 50-50 between taxpayers and sewer users, but “We will look for public input when we have better numbers.”

He said the town will be looking into grants that become available in June for help in reducing the cost of the project.

“Here again, as with the entire project, if borrowing the money for the replacement is too high a cost, the board has the option to just use the $500,000 and do only the required repairs,” Milbrand said.

During the same meeting on March 3, selectmen approved a 12% increase in both water and sewer rates to better align them with costs and avoid drawing down a fund established to cover emergency repairs. If sewer users are to take on a portion of the loan payments for the new sewer project, they would see a further rate increase.

Water and Sewer Superintendent Jeff Chartier said that, even if users had to pay half the cost of the upgrade, their rates still would fall below the state average for sewer services.

A 50-50 split would mean that taxpayers would see their municipal property tax rate increase by 17 cents, the board estimated.

Background

The sewer project was controversial from the beginning, with voters barely reaching the two-thirds majority necessary for approval in 2019. The measure passed by a vote of 110-54.

Subsequent to the vote, residents attempted to rescind the decision, expressing “buyer’s remorse” and saying they were not aware of all the costs.

In fact, the town had conducted special informational meetings prior to the 2019 Town Meeting to explain the costs as they appeared at that time. Taxpayers were to pick up 40% of an estimated $41.5 million cost, or $400,000 annually. Those already on the sewer system would see a 40% increase in their sewer bills, or between $140 and $160 per year for 30 years, for a total annual sewer bill of about $520.

Residents with their own septic systems but living within 100 feet of the sewer system extension would be required to pay a betterment fee of $610 per year, whether they connected to the line or not — and those who did connect would be paying the regular sewer rate, plus covering the cost of running a line from their homes to the municipal connection at the property line, which in some cases would require installing a pump and electrical panel.

Not only would lake-dwellers be paying those fees, but they also would likely see their property values rise, increasing their tax burden. One estimate put the impact for lake residents in the realm of $4,000-$7,000.

Yet the project was seen as important: Newfound Lake is known as the cleanest lake east of the Mississippi River, fed as it is by the Fowler and Cockermouth rivers, which rapidly flush it. Recent testing has shown that the water quality has degraded, particularly at the outlet to the Newfound River, although whether that is due to failing septic systems remains questionable. Development all around the lake — not just in Bristol — along with erosion from higher water levels in recent years, are contributing factors.

The town has discussed extending the municipal sewer line to Newfound Lake since 1971, and voters gave conditional approval to a plan in 2009 that was contingent upon receiving a grant to cover a significant portion of the work. The grant did not come through.

Milbrand said the the town revived the project when “the federal government basically came to us and said there’s a block of money [through the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development grant and loan program] you have a good chance of getting a portion of for this project.”

“I think the misconception was that, by us continuing even though we were getting negative numbers and negative feedback, and we still continued to the end of the process… it wasn’t that we were trying to push the project through and massage it and make it work; it was that we wanted to finish the process,” Milbrand said.

“I feel like you wait until you have all the facts,” agreed selectboard member Leslie Dion. “We made a decision based on the cost that impacted new sewer users around the lake would be too substantial, and there are other competing financial needs in town.”

She noted that dropping the lake from the project may mean the town has to turn down $6.3 million in Rural Development grants and $10.5 million in loans.

“I think we’re getting battered a lot, and that’s okay because that’s the job, but I feel we held our own because we wanted to make the right decision,” she said.

Selectboard member Shaun Lagueux said he was “dead-set against the whole project” at the time it was proposed, “and then when I ran again last year, in the back of my head, I was like, ‘This is wrong [but] I’m going to listen to everything. And what I got out of that was… we finally got all the information that we needed to make the right decision, and I do think we’re making the right decision.”