Enfield — It’s been more than two years since the residents of Lakeview Condominium found out their septic system was failing, and they’re still waiting on a permanent solution.

Although Enfield voted overwhelmingly in 2016 to extend the town’s sewer system southeast along Route 4A and out to Lakeview’s 131 households, construction has yet to begin, and Lakeview officials are starting to worry.

“Our main concern is the cost that we are incurring,” Kevin Delmastro, president of the Lakeview Homeowners Association, told the Selectboard during an April 17 meeting.

The association is currently spending $4,500 a month to pump out septic tanks at its property, he said in a recording of the meeting. And they’re expecting another $16,500 monthly bill because more septic fields are expected to fail later this spring.

“So for every month the project is delayed, that costs us $21,000,” Delmastro said, urging the board to expedite pre-construction work.

Delmastro’s concerns came last month as town officials discussed how to push forward on the sewer extension project in the wake of recent setbacks.

Earlier in April, the town received too few bids on the project, delaying the choosing of a contractor. The board also is trying to wrangle sewer easements from the nearby Shaker Landing Condominium Association, which is asking for help with its own sewer project.

“We need an easement from them to run the sewer main down Landing Road,” Interim Town Manager Alisa Bonnette said last week. “We need to have that easement in place before we can proceed with the (construction).”

Once construction does begin, it could take up to 170 days for “substantial completion” of the project, according to Enfield’s advertisement for bids. Contractors also would be given up to 190 days to finish the project in their contract with the town, the ad said. 

The Selectboard is scheduled to meet tonight to discuss the sewer extension and hold a public hearing on its sewer ordinance. Enfield needs to create a betterment assessment so that Lakeview residents can pay off the extension on their own, Bonnette said, and the town’s sewer ordinance must be changed to accomplish that.

When voters approved a 1.5-mile sewer extension to Lakeview in March 2016, they were told the project could start that summer and end later that year.

The roughly $2.5 million bond would be paid off through a loan from the state and federal governments, officials said. Condo residents, not the entire town, would then pay down that loan. Voters also were told the bond would be $1 million cheaper than the next best alternative: repairing several septic systems that failed in April 2015.

But a state environmental review of the project wasn’t released until that August, meaning bids couldn’t go out until this spring. When they did come back, on April 3, only two companies chose to compete for a contract, one fewer than is required by federal regulations.

Around the same time, the Selectboard learned of another problem: bids for a parallel project were coming in too high.

The Shaker Landing Condominiums, which comprise 32 units on Landing Road, has seen its septic system age over time. Rather than wait for the system to fail, officials decided the Lakeview sewer extension project would be a good opportunity for portions of Shaker Landing to hook into the town’s sewer system, according to Bev Sletten, who serves on the condo association’s board.

“We’re kind of being proactive. It’s going to cost us money and we know that,” Sletten said on Sunday.

So the association obtained a federal grant to help pay for its own extension, she said. But the terms of that grant aren’t favorable to the Selectboard.

Bids for the Shaker Landing extension project came back “well over budget,” Rod Finley, an engineer with Pathways Consulting, told the Selectboard during its April 17 meeting.

The federal government also wanted the town to have long-term ownership over a pump station Shaker Landing would be connecting to, he said. Previously, the town and Shaker Landing had agreed that station would only change hands temporarily, while the project was underway.

There could be as many as 10 new pump stations along Route 4A as a result of the larger sewer extension project, Finley said, and the town doesn’t want to own them all. He recommended that Shaker Landing either rebid their project or negotiate a lower price with the companies that did bid.

In a worst case scenario, Finley said, Shaker Landing wouldn’t grant the town an easement, and engineers would have to find an alternate route at an additional cost of about $100,000.

Sletten said Shaker Landing doesn’t want to cause a problem with the overall project, but if the town doesn’t take ownership of the pump station, condo owners could end up paying significantly more to connect to the town’s sewer lines.

“We’re continuing to push forward with this and hoping we can change some minds,” she said. “We just wanted to be treated fairly by the town.”

Bonnette, the interim town manager, also said she’s hopeful the project will be moving ahead with easements from Shaker Landing, adding the town would like to begin construction “as soon as possible.”

The Enfield Selectboard will discuss the Lakeview sewer extension and an amendment to the town sewer ordinance at 6 p.m. tonight in the Public Works facility at 74 Lockehaven Road.

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.

Correction

Enfield officials are discussing the creation of betterment assessments on property owners at the Lakeview condominiums to pay for a sewer extension project along Route 4A. An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the proposed assessments.