BETHEL — “Our mission is to bring safe drinking water to the residents of Bethel and West Bethel,” water district Chairman Scott Fraser said.
The district meets the third Tuesday of each month at their office in West Bethel on the Flat Road. They meet at 7 p.m. and all of their meetings are open to the public.
Changes
Randy Autrey replaced Brent Angevine on the board of trustees last summer. Autry serves as clerk of the board while Fraser is chairman and Reggie Brown, the board’s longest tenured member, serves as treasurer.
The board hired Eric Belcher to replace Donnie Katlin as an assistant superintendent following Katlin’s retirement from the board in 2019. Katlin had served multiple roles with the water district since joining in 1977. Belcher formerly worked for the Portland Water District and currently resides in Lovell.
“We are very pleased to have him as part of the district. He’s a great asset to our team and he brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience,” Fraser said of Belcher.
Projects
Fraser said the water district has started to paint the fire hydrants around town. The district owns the fire hydrants and rents them to the town for fire protection. The district is responsible for all upkeep on the hydrants so that they are functioning properly 24/7.
On top of painting, Belcher and Water District Superintendent Lucien Roberge are also flushing all the hydrants.
There are no major projects on the horizon, but some recently completed ones include replacing a water main on Vernon Street, part of one on Philbrook Street and discontinuing a section of one on Chapman Street.
The district also repaired a main that runs from the end of Mill Hill Road on Lovers Lane out to Route 2. Work on the main was done last summer but the district was unable to complete it due to construction season ending.
A few years back, the district also purchased new water meters. They are called radio read meters and the addition of them has been a game changer for the district.
“Our staff no longer has to enter people’s property to read the meters. They can just drive around town and do it from a radio read,” Fraser said. “It used to take the district sometimes up to two weeks to read all the meters in town. They had to go around building to building and manually read them. Now they can do it in two days. We are saving a ton of labor.”
“With this new technology we feel like now we’re getting a lot better data which allows us to bill our customers properly.”
Another major accomplishment Fraser highlighted was connecting West Bethel and Bethel to the same water plant. The connection happened after the district lost its water source from Chapman Brook following a massive rain storm more than 10 years ago. The water district used to get its water from a surface water reservoir from the brook, which is located on the Daisy Bryant Road. The district was one of the last in the state to have this ability.
“The state wanted it to be a well. They wanted it to be underground, not a surface source,” Fraser said.
However, the Public Utilities Commission always granted them permission to continue using Chapman Brook as a water source since the water was so clear and clean.
According to Fraser, more than 10 years ago, a micro burst occurred near the reservoir where the area was hit with about eight inches of rain in an hour.
“That created almost like a tsunami down the brook and it took out our reservoir,” Fraser said.
With the reservoir no longer an option the district began digging wells at on the North Road. This is now where its plant is located. While losing the reservoir was difficult, Fraser said relocating did allow them to try out some new aeration technology, which allows them to make the water bacteria-free without using any chemicals. Another benefit was getting people in West Bethel the same drinking water as people in Bethel.
“It’s all fed through the same place now,” Fraser said. “It’s great that we were able to give people in West Bethel the same water source.”
Fraser mentioned that while West Bethel’s water always passed inspections the quality was never quite as good as Bethel’s.
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