PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Presque Isle Utilities District water rate increase is on track to take effect in February, while a sewer rate increase also is likely.
The PIUD’s board of trustees met on Tuesday, Dec. 11, to discuss issues ranging from the pending rate increase to the effort to drill another drinking water well to plans for instrustructure work in the coming years. The board opened the meeting for a public hearing on the rate increase, but no utility customers attended the meeting to offer comments.
Starting February 2019, the PIUD will raise drinking water rates by 11.55 percent on average, with residential customers seeing an increase of 10.76 percent. The increase was approved by the Maine Public Utilities Commission, and would raise residential quarterly water bills from $49.13 per 1,200 cubic feet of water to $54.42.
Presque Isle Utilities District Manager Frank Kearney said the increase is necessary to pay for rising costs in operating and maintaining water treatment as well as infrastructure projects that are replacing or repairing decades-old systems. The PIUD currently has $8 million in debt for 18 different loans, including a $1.3 million loan for a recent water main replacement that will cost $80,000 per year over 20 years.
A rate increase for sewer services also likely will be proposed within the next year, Kearney told the board. Both public drinking water and sewer systems across the state and country are aging and in need of repairs.
The PIUD provides drinking water and sewer services to about 6,000 people in Presque Isle and after several dry summers has been searching for a property where a third drinking water well could be established as a backup water supply.
Since 2005, Presque Isle’s public drinking water supply has come from two gravel aquifer wells fed by the Aroostook River. They have been successful overall, but they are more vulnerable to low river flows than engineers originally believed, Kearney said. While the utility hasn’t instituted water conservation measures during the past two droughts, they have come close to considering it as the river’s levels fell below historic averages.
Kearney told the board Tuesday that talks are continuing with a landowner who is open to selling the utility a parcel along the Aroostook River where a third well could be drilled.
“It’s important that we have a redundant water supply,” Kearney said, adding that the utility would like to start test drilling within a year if the land negotiations progress.
The PIUD also is planning to start work in 2019 on a two mile sewer line around the Presque Isle Industrial Park beginning at the former Tatermeal factory. The sewer lines there date back to the former Air Force base, and have been due for replacement, Kearney said. This project is estimated to cost $1.28 million in total and will be financed with a $500,000 grant from the federal Northern Border Regional Commission and a 20-year $780,000 loan from the state’s revolving loan fund.
