SCARBOROUGH – In something of a rarity, open seats are being contested this election cycle on both the Scarborough Sanitary District Board of Trustees and Scarborough’s trustee seat on the Portland Water District.

In the sanitary district, incumbents Herbert “Bud” Waldron, 64, and David Nelson, 66, have drawn a challenge from 42-year-old Seth Garrison for two available seats. Both seats are for three-year terms.

Garrison is also running against Portland Water District incumbent Robert McSorley, 51. That seat carries a five-year term.

If Garrison can unseat either Waldron or Nelson, it will represent something of a sea change for the sanitary district. Waldron, a landfill supervisor at ecomaine, was first elected as a trustee in 1992, while Nelson, a parts and service representative at Milton Cat, a heavy equipment dealer on Pleasant Hill Road, has held his seat since 1990.

Garrison, a management consultant at Portland-based Woodard & Curran, said at an Oct. 10 candidates forum sponsored by the Scarborough Community Chamber, that he hopes to make use of his experience consulting with various utilities and managing the Bath Water District, as well as his education, capped by a master’s degree in public policy and management form the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine.

“Water and waste water is not a sexy thing, but it can have a lot of impact on the community,” he said. “The more you can plan, the less you have to react,”

Following a recent rate increase this past spring, Waldron and Nelson promised to avoid another rate hike for the district, which has an annual budget of about $3 million, pledging instead to focus in the near term on retiring debt over the next decade.

“You don’t need to be an engineer or anything else, it is mostly common sense,” said Waldron.

“If everything is going the way it should, no one knows we are here,” agreed Nelson.

Garrison said he intends to investigate ways to save money by making operations more efficient at both the sanitary district and PWD. That, he said, should help to fund needed infrastructure upgrades, particularly at PWD, where some water mains are nearly a century old.

McSorley, an engineer with South Portland-based Sebago Technics, said he has the technical know-how needed to keep public drinking water safe.

“I’m an overview person making sure the right decisions are being made,” he said.

Among Garrison’s recent consulting work was a report on sea-level rise for the Ogunquit Sewer District. For that project, he suggested money could be saved by coordinating future capital investment in Scarborough in relation to rising seas and any resulting regulatory changes.

Nelson, on the other hand, said much work has been done already at all 24 sanitary district pump stations to reduce infiltration into the sewer system from stormwater runoff. Waldron doubted those new systems will be operating at capacity anytime soon.

“Sea-level rise, I am not sold that is happening,” he said.