A pipeline providing a clean water supply to homes known to have contaminated water in Bucks Harbor, Machiasport, is on hold, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Marie Wojtas, project manager for USACE, says that residents of Bucks Harbor were notified in February that due to the recent and sudden closure of Downeast Correctional Facility (DCF) the installation of an approved and budgeted water pipeline has been stopped.
    "The issue that we were not expecting is that DCF would close before the water line was installed," says Wojtas. "This complicates the process from the perspective of funding the cost of the installation without a known operator at the time of installation."
     The prison was closed abruptly on February 9 when heavily armed officers of the Department of Corrections (DOC) and Maine State Police rounded up guards, staff and inmates, removing them from the facility. All employees of DCF were given termination notices. Following a judge's ruling in a court case that was brought over the closure, the facility has since been reopened but is operating at a minimal capacity, with official closure still set for June 2018 unless additional funding is approved by the legislature.
     In 1994 USACE found 11 different chemicals while removing fuel tanks from housing units located below a radar site once occupied by the U.S. Air Force and now occupied by the DCF. At the time of the tank removal one chemical, trichloroethylene (TCE), raised the most concern. TCE was a primary cleaning agent used on radar equipment. Further testing in 1995 determined 15 private wells in the area were contaminated with TCE. The USACE had point-of-entry charcoal filtration systems installed at the affected residences and began discussions on a remediation process. Years later, a plan to run a water pipeline from the DCF public well was finally developed and presented at a special town meeting in May of 2016.
     At that meeting, representatives of the Maine Attorney General's Office, DOC, USACE, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and residents of Machiasport heard a presentation about the water pipeline. The meeting also allowed for public comments, statements and requests to be added to a decision document being formalized. A decision document is necessary to allow funding of the project. During the discussion, a question was asked regarding the impact possible closure of DCF would have on the plan. In response, all representatives stated that alternate plans would be included into the decision document in case that was to occur.
      The final decision document does state the following: "An agreement between the DOC and USACE has been drafted and will be finalized before the water line construction begins. If the DCF was to close down within the 30‑year monitoring program, another mechanism for operation and maintenance of the DCF water well supply will be sought." Wojtas advises that agreement was never officially signed, but the agreement to work together does exist.
     What has exacerbated the effort to continue the pipeline installation is the sudden nature of the closing and not knowing what, when and, more importantly, who will be operating the facility should DCF be permanently closed. "We concur with USACE that once the State of Maine determines the disposition of the DCF property we will have a better understanding of how best to proceed," says David Madore, communications director for the DEP. "Until such time, residents in the Howard Mountain area with TCE in their well water continue to be protected with point‑of‑entry treatment systems ensuring that no one is being exposed to unacceptable levels of TCE. DEP continues to dialog with all the parties involved and remains available to work with USACE and DOC once a final determination has been made."
     In July of 2017 a contract to construct the water pipeline was awarded to CCI Alliance based in Augusta in the amount of $1,553,397. This came a year after USACE hired Colby Company Engineering of Portland to come up with a design that would upgrade the current public water system in use at DCF, as well as provide a pipeline of water to those residents needing it in Bucks Harbor.
     "We [USACE and DEP] are discussing possible alternatives," says Wojtas. "Should the DCF reopen, the water line extension still is a possibility. Once the infrastructure is in place for the alternate water supply we feel that other alternatives for operation of the water supply could be implemented should DCF permanently close." Wojtas also reiterates that USACE does indeed have an agreement with the Department of Corrections to both house and operate the system as discussed at the public meeting.