BETHEL — A special selectmen meeting will be held at 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, in the town hall with the town attorney, an official from the Maine Office of the Attorney General, and members of the Bethel Water District, Town Manager Jim Doar stated Monday by e-mail.
Doar said the group will discuss the consent agreement for the district’s 2,300-acre Bingham Land Trust in Bethel and Newry.
“I anticipate at least one executive session with everyone, and perhaps one with just the selectmen, me, and our attorney,” Doar said. “I don’t think the board will take any action following executive session.”
According to a Sept. 16 story in the Bethel Citizen, the Attorney General’s Office has proposed a consent order in which Bethel would manage, repair and maintain all infrastructure needed to put the district’s former Chapman Brook Watershed back into service as an emergency backup water supply.
The brook and watershed, which served as the town’s water supply, was destroyed by heavy rains in 2007, which filled the brook and reservoir with gravel, clay and debris. The district drilled new wells along North Road.
The consent agreement states that the town could harvest timber under strict guidelines and use the money to pay taxes on the land, maintain the infrastructure and manage the land.
The proposal also limits motorized access to the watershed to snowmobiles only and additionally limits public recreational access.
The consent agreement was fashioned after district trustees went to the Attorney General’s Office last year to modify the trust of William Bingham II.
In 1925, he gave 2,358 acres in Newry in trust to the district’s predecessor, the Bethel Water Co., to use as the foundation for Bethel’s water supply.
To keep Chapman Brook pure, he limited wood harvesting to only enough wood to pay taxes on the land. He also stipulated that should the land be abandoned as a water supply, ownership would revert back to the state, where it would forever be maintained and managed as a preserve, sanctuary, park or forest reserve.
District trustees wanted to keep the watershed as a backup water source, allow expanded wood harvesting, the income from which would provide water rate relief for customers, and create recreational trails (hiking and snowmobile) on the land, and maintain Chapman Brook as an emergency water source.
Trustees additionally wanted to clarify the long-standing lease arrangement with Sunday River Ski Resort for a 9.4-acre parcel at the top of the watershed.
The district currently pays $4,000 in taxes to Newry, but not to Bethel where 111 watershed acres are located, the Citizen story said.
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