Updated: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 5:22 PM
Branch
Pond Association
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Winter 1985 Newsletter
| Topics: Road Update Other News Septic Sludge Proposal Site |
Road Update
I am certain that many of you are wondering what is happening in our negotiations with the City for increased road maintenance. As you may remember, last July the City agreed to accept 8 of the Branch Pond Fire Roads as part of the town network. The individual roads had specific services and restoration needs that the City agreed to provide, given that a public easement could be approved for each.
Since that time, the City Attorney (Bernard Staples) and the Branch Pond Association's attorney (Joel Dearborn) have met repeatedly to prepare the legal documents necessary to convey an easement to the City. It is a complicated matter and progress has been slow. Part of the problem involves the City's current inability to commit to a permanent maintenance plan that could not be readily rescinded by future councils. In September, we submitted detailed specifications of the yearly services that are needed to keep each road in good condition. These specifications have been reviewed by the Council and they are willing to commit to them, as long as the easements can be approved. In fact, most of the specifications were approved as part of the July Council vote.
The problem lies in the fact that, at the present time, the City is prohibited by State Statute from entering into long-term contractual relations with Associations such as our own. Thus, they cannot commit future Councils to honor past agreements for roads other than Public ways. This prohibition has been confirmed not only by the City's attorney, but also by our own.
As a solution, Bernie Staples and Joel Dearborn have drafted an amendment to the current State Statute pertinent to road maintenance. The amendment is provided below for you to review. Basically, it would make it legal for a city to form a permanent contract with private citizens for the purpose of maintenance on Public Easement Roads. Ruth Foster, who is the Representative from Ellsworth to the State Legislature, has already put forth the amendment for "emergency consideration" in Augusta. It should be acted upon this spring or early summer.
In the meantime, the City has agreed verbally to go ahead with the $28,000 restoration commitment, with work to start this summer. Although we had hoped to get a reaffirmation of this in writing (see attached letter from Joel Dearborn), we have been promised that the restoration will be initiated even though final transfer of the roads may not yet be complete. For those of you who live in Maine, you can help this project along by encouraging your State Representative to support the amendment described below.
Public Easement Amendment: State Statutes
Add Section 3025-A to Title 23: Acceptance of Public Easement and Level of Maintenance
A municipality may accept title to property -for the purposes of a public easement as defined in Section 3021(2) of this chapter and the municipal officers may contract with one or more of the property owners adjacent to the public easement as to the level of construction, maintenance, and care the municipality shall give to the public easement, subject to the -following provisions of this chapter;
The right of the municipal officers to lay out a town way.
The right of the municipal officers to discontinue the public easement or town way.
The right of the property owners adjacent to the public easement petitioning the municipal officers to lay out a public way.
 | As usual, our yearly meeting will be scheduled in July. If anyone has an item that needs to be considered by the membership, please let me know by June so that it can be added to the agenda. |
| If anyone has information that needs to be included in the summer newsletter, please submit it to Ralph Mastrorio (our summer editor) care of P.O. Box 68, Ellsworth. |
| Mark Kaplan has agreed to organize our first Branch Pond Regatta. I'm certain volunteers will be needed as time Keepers, cocktail mixers, etc. How about some help on this? |
| Renewal of BPA membership for 1984-1985 has been strong. This newsletter has been sent to those former members who have not yet paid their current dues, with a reminder that their membership has lapsed. A second renewal form was also sent. |
| I have had a number of calls and letters from property owners on the Cove Road, inquiring about whether the BPA will represent their need for increased road maintenance with the City. This matter will probably warrant discussion at the July meeting. |
| At last look, the Pond was covered with ice and fisherman. Nevertheless, the days are clearly getting longer and before long we should all be putting our boats in the water. Have a good spring. |
For those of you who don't subscribe to the Ellsworth American in the winter, here is an update on an issue that may affect Branch Pond property owners. The newspaper articles describe the application submitted by John Phillips to operate a septic sludge disposal site on property situated above the lake. In mid-December the city council gave its approval. The Board of Appeals declared the sludge dump an acceptable use of property in an R2 zone in a late December meeting. In January, the application was submitted to the Department of Environmental Protection, the final step in the approval process.
Normal procedure allows public comment on such applications for 14 days after the application is received by the DEP. The public is notified by a Legal Notice in local newspapers. In this case, no legal notice was published at the time of application, while one of the newspaper articles states that the period for accepting public comment has passed, Bill Noble of the DEP confirmed that comments would be considered for another two weeks under the circumstances.
The application was submitted to the Bureau of Land Quality Control. Bill Noble is reviewing the application from the perspective of soil quality. Since a lake was near the site, Mr. Noble also passed the application on to Jeff Dennis in the Lakes Environmental Studies 0ffice. Mr. Dennis will assess the impact on the lake and then all opinions and public reaction will be summarized by John James, the project manager, in his final recommendation for approval or rejection.
Very preliminary reactions from the DEP are as follows; Bill Noble indicated that the site looked approvable based on the soil analyses submitted with the application. From a quick review of the same data Jeff Dennis judged the soil to have moderate to low infiltration quality. He felt the soil was not as absorptive as he would like it to be considering the high phosphorus content of septic sludge.
One week will have passed by the time you receive this newsletter so to have your opinion on this matter considered you should write IMMEDIATELY to:
John James, Project Manager
Bureau of Land Quality Control
Department of Environmental Protection
Statehouse, Station 17
Augusta, Me. 04333
