The Little Falls Wastewater Treatment Facility on the Windham/Gorham border is scheduled to be closed if the existing sewer network is expanded through Gorham to connect with the Westbrook Regional Treatment Facility.
“The Little Falls treatment plant has been a problem for quite awhile,” said Stuart Rose of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
Over the years, the DEP has issued letters of warning to the plant’s owner, Portland Water District, about facility violations where “settleable solids” have been discharged into the Presumpscot River, Rose said.
Because the facility is near capacity, heavy rainfall and other increases to the flow can overtax the system and cause a malfunction. Bacteria and protozoa feed on the waste inside the treatment facility and cause it to settle in a process known as flocculation. Too much water in the system however can hinder this process.
“The balance is that you have a good flocculating mass,” Rose said. “If it’s not flocculating well, the biological mass won’t settle and it will go out the pipe.”
An outfall of unclean wastewater could contain the E. coli bacteria and other contaminates. This has had groups such as Environment Maine pushing for the closure of the Little Falls facility and for renovations to other facilities around the state.
“One of the easiest ways to improve water quality is to improve the wastewater management in the state.” said Matthew Davis, advocate for Environment Maine.
Environment Maine had advocated a $15 million wastewater bond that would help fund renovations to the systems. State legislatures however did not include any money for such renovations in the $83 million bond they passed this week.
With a price tag of roughly $4.5 million for the sewer line extension, some Windham residents have been worried that the cost of the sewer system and the extension will be subsidized by the town.
“My problem is that if you don’t use it, why do we have to pay for it?” said Tom Gleason of Cook Road. “We have been subsizing it now. I don’t want to see that go up anymore.”
Town Manager Anthony Plante said that because there will be more users on the sewer system, both its extension and operation can be paid for with user fees, eliminating the yearly $25,000 subsidy for the current sewer system.
“If we can get more users on the system, then we can get more people to pay for it than we do now,” Plante said.
A bulk of those new users will be the Village at Little Falls, a residential housing complex scheduled to be built on the site of the old Keddy Mill. The town of Windham and Gorham have also been in negotiations with the Windham Correctional Center which may close its treatment facility and connect with the sewer extension to Westbrook.
Jay Hewitt, chief engineer for the Portland Water District and project manager of the sewer extension, said that the construction on the project may start as soon as next year, with a tentative construction date of April 2006.
“One of the steps we will be going through is we will be meeting with the state folks and the towns of Windham and Gorham,” Hewitt said. “Hopefully it will be an economic viability for all parties.”
The Little Falls Wastewater Treatment Facility on the Windham/Gorham border is scheduled to be closed if the South Windham sewer network is extended through Gorham to connect with the Westbrook Regional Treatment Facility.Send questions/comments to the editors.
