WISCASSET
After a decade of work, the Wiscasset Water District has finally completed an $8.8 million effort to replace the area’s century old infrastructure.
“It’s been multiple projects over the years, going back to 2007-2008,” said Wiscasset Water District Superintendent Chris Cossette.
When the water district was first formed, the board of trustees conducted a system analysis of the infrastructure. A few years after Cossette started, the district began the long, laborious process of replacing the century old pipes criss-crossing the town of Wiscasset and heading into Woolwich and Edgecomb. The district serves 1,361 customers in the three towns and consists of 23 miles of water mains.
“A lot of streets that were on this list, all these water mains were over 100 years old and had break histories,” said Cossette. “To address these, we tackled these systematically.”
Throughout the process, the district collaborated with the Maine Department of Transportation and the Wiscasset town officials to replace water mains where roadwork was already planned, which helped prevent repeated construction work on those roads and reduced the inconvenience to locals.
On Monday, the district celebrated the completion of the final project in the decade-long effort.
“This project that just concluded this year was the final project that completes our capital improvement list of projects,” said Cossette.
With the project complete, there are no more century-old water mains in the district. Cossette said the new infrastructure will mean less long-term maintenance and overall better water quality.
“You won’t see that unforeseen water main break. Water main breaks are inevitable, that just happens normally, but the type of pipe we put in is more resilient,” said Cossette.
Much of the financing for the improvements came through a combination of loans and grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2016, the department provided a combined $4.35 million through a loan and grant to the district to complete the project.
nstrout@timesrecord.com
Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
You can read more here about our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is also found on our FAQs.
Show less