Officials in the town of Bridgton unveiled a new wastewater treatment plant today they said will prevent wastewater from seeping into local waterways.
David Madsen, the Bridgton Wastewater Superintendent, said the old system only treated gray water, not sewage, and served a small portion of the downtown area. Madsen said tests of a brook that ran through town revealed a problem
“Stevens Brook runs right through the center of town,” Madsen said. “And they went and did testing on Stevens Brook, and they found that as it left Highland Lake before it got to Long Lake. It was slowly getting more polluted as it went through the town. So that was a big driver to why we wound up doing this project.”
Along with building the facility, five miles of new pipe were constructed allowing this treatment facility to service over 500 more customers than the previous one.
“So now that we've got our infrastructure all throughout the downtown area, everybody's able to hook on,” Madsen said. “We're able to get rid of some of the older, failing systems. And so environmentally, it's going to have a huge impact on the town of Bridgeton.”
The facility cost almost $26 million and was mostly funded through state and federal grants.
