March 29, 2024
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Millinocket ponders infrastructure overhauls

MILLINOCKET – The town is seeking $2 million in loans and state grants to rebuild the infrastructure of the Iron Bridge Road area in the northern end of town by 2008 and end more than five years of problems, Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said Monday.

Under Conlogue’s plan, the town will apply for as much as $500,000 in state Community Development Block Grant money with the rest coming from a loan from a private banking institution, Conlogue said.

The town’s money will pay for all street and sewer line repair except for a new water main, which will be paid for by Aqua Maine Inc., which supplies town water.

“It’s been needed for many, many years. It was needed well before I ever got here,” said Conlogue, who began working for the town as town manager in 1999. “We have been working at it, and basically it is just something we need to do. The council is on board with it, and we need to get it done.”

Katahdin Avenue Extension, River Drive Park and Iron Bridge Road and part of Katahdin Avenue will undergo the repairs, Conlogue said.

The repairs will include new paving, sewer mains and waste water drains, and possibly a street widening for parts of the roads mentioned. Olver Associates Inc. of Winterport did the engineering estimate and survey, Conlogue said.

If all goes well, the town will finish its grant and loan application processes in time to do the work sometime in 2007 or early 2008, Conlogue said. The Town Council gave informal approval for the loan and grant application process at its meeting last Thursday.

The sewer lines, which are decades old, are made of disintegrating clay pipe that must be flushed weekly to keep the system clear, Conlogue said. Ground roots and underground water are infiltrating it.

Iron Bridge Road also is narrow and in need of work.

“It just causes a real problem if you have to do work out there,” Conlogue said.


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