Resident Catherine Spencer DiPietro posed the question to selectmen last week what will be the actual capacity of the proposed Bridgton wastewater expansion system?

The question was given to Brent M. Bridges, P.E., Senior Principal at Woodard & Curran, and the following response was crafted by Bridgton Town Manager Robert Peabody:

“Based on the presentations and work Woodward & Curran have done to date, they have stated that the new wastewater system would be roughly three times the capacity of the current system. They did not feel that the actual numbers were important as the overall goals were to provide expanded capacity for both existing and future users.  That was what they used in developing the Preliminary Engineering Report which was the document used to secure funding for the project. No actual design has been done yet, but this presents the basis for design.

“Keep in mind that at the time of their evaluation, Bridgton’s original wastewater system was designed for 40,000 gallons per day (gpd), but is only licensed for 30,000 gpd and was using on average 20,000 gpd.

“Based on the water data they got from the town that came from the Bridgton Water District, the 207 existing sewer users are using approximately 20,000 gpd of water and the 448 future sewer users are using approximately 57,500 gpd of water. Having actual water usage records is valuable to have versus having to estimate usage. This is a total of 77,500 gpd of water use. They are planning to design the new WWTF for an average day flow of 120,000 gpd.

“It generally takes 10 years or so for all potential users to actually hook up and generally not all that can will so they feel that this is a reasonable sizing of the new facility. Someone has to pay for any extra capacity we build so while the sewer collection pipes in the ground and the pump stations will be sized to accommodate more flow than this, the treatment system itself will not be significantly oversized.

“The treatment and subsurface disposal system Woodard & Curran propose are readily expandable should we see a significantly faster hook up rate or large-scale development that will generate the user revenue for us to consider expansion. They would not suggest that we build more than what they estimate at this time however.

“The Bridgton Water District system extends beyond the boundaries of the existing and proposed sewer users so they used the actual water meter info for the users that are currently connected.

“The Town does not have a wastewater facility for accepting septic waste. We contract with Portland Water District and Lewiston-Auburn Water District for septic disposal.”