Bangor officials outline options and higher costs to address Kmart and Perry Road pump stations

The Infrastructure Committee was told Monday that two of Bangor’s five sewer pump stations need major work, with choices that will raise project costs and affect future development and the city’s capital improvement plan.

Amanda Smith, director of water quality, told the committee the Kmart pump station — in service about 40 years and serving an area from Home Depot and Stillwater Avenue to Longview Drive and the Bangor Mall Boulevard — is at capacity and “tired.” A 2023 capital improvement plan allocation of $1,700,000 covered a pump-station upgrade; engineering firm Haley Ward later found a downstream bottleneck under the interstate could be upsized so the pump station could be eliminated. Smith said the total cost to eliminate the station and upsize the downstream line would be about $3.5 million, higher than the original single-station upgrade estimate.

Smith also described the…