Lake Placid utilities meeting hears project delays, approves emergency chlorine skid purchase

At a town utilities meeting in Lake Placid, engineers and residents raised alarms about construction delays and outstanding repairs on the town's advanced wastewater treatment project, and the committee voted to recommend a $31,400 budget amendment to replace a failing chlorine skid at the Sereno water treatment plant.

The meeting included a financial update on federally and state-funded work, a Pennoni engineer's progress report on multiple lift stations and force mains, and repeated requests from resident Pam Fentress for a master utilities plan and clearer coordination on state grants and permits.

Pam Fentress, a Lake Placid resident who gave public comment, warned that the $40 million wastewater project is tied to coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds and said the town must meet final deliveries by Sept. 30, 2026 to avoid financial risk. "If it doesn't get all done by that date, then ... the town may be on the hook for $20,000,000," she said, urging better communication and long-term staffing stability for utilities oversight.

Roger Homan, an engineer with Pennoni, said the new advanced wastewater treatment plant has been started up and is treating wastewater but that contractors found leaking joints that must be repaired before the digester and chlorine contact chamber can be put into service. Homan said as-built drawings show a newly constructed access road was built without the specified inverted crown, forcing a contractor correction as part of punch-list work; he said the town has not granted substantial completion and that the work remains late compared with the original March 11, 2026 completion date. "We won't know till it's tested again," Homan said of the repaired tanks; he also noted liquidated damages of $1,000 per day that the town intends to assess for delays beyond the contract date.

On finances, the town's financial director presented the grant task list and reported drawdown totals and projections. She said the town had drawn down about $34,703,107 to date and had a little more than $5,000,000 remaining to draw down; the town expected a state reimbursement of about $4,600,000 within a week that could allow a Seacoast Bank line of credit (reported at about $390,000) to be paid off by July 30 and the grant project to move toward closeout by late August or early September.

Committee members asked the engineer to provide a monthly updated punch list and to share the checklist used to monitor outstanding items. Homan agreed to provide the punch list updates to the committee on a regular basis.

On an action item, the committee considered a recommendation to town council to approve a $31,400 purchase for a replacement chlorine skid at the Sereno treatment plant. The utilities representative described the existing skid as outdated, leaking and requiring tank cleanings two to three times per week; she called the replacement "dire." A committee member moved, a second was given, and the roll call recorded affirmative votes from Jack Conley, Pam Brewer and John Draper; the committee approved recommending the purchase to the town council.

Other operational updates included reports that the South Lift Station and related force main are in service and that Marquata Drive and Main Street lift stations have been installed and await final piping work and start-up. Homan said the long force main has been constructed and pressure-tested, and that remaining work is largely site restoration and minor punch-list items. He estimated peak pump capacity at about 170 gallons per minute for the new stations and said the plant currently treats roughly 200,000 to 250,000 gallons per day while being designed for 1,000,000 gallons per day; operating at lower flow, he said, need only operational tweaks and does not inherently reduce final water quality.

Residents and members also discussed waterline breaks, the need to locate and restore buried valves to reduce outage impact, volunteer lake monitoring and pending ERP (environmental resource permit) applications for nearby lakes. The utilities director noted some monitoring wells around the plant are continuously sampled and that staff will explore homeowner permissions for shoreline sampling where needed to establish pre-startup baselines.

The committee agreed to add the master utilities plan, reuse-line questions along Highway 27, and the Lake Placid Camp and Conference Center waterline status to the next meeting's agenda so staff can provide pre-meeting information. With no further business, the chair adjourned the meeting.

The committee directed staff to (1) bring the master utilities plan status and related grant/permitting updates to the next meeting, (2) provide monthly punch-list/checklist updates from Pennoni for the wastewater project, and (3) forward the recommended $31,400 chlorine skid purchase to town council for final approval.