Dear Editor:

I have made a mistake. I misunderstood the water district's website. I though that Holly Stover had an ex-officio position because she is our representative. I filed nomination papers and found out that she is the incumbent for Boothbay and running again.

Holly Stover is almost beloved in this community for the extraordinary casework that she has done. I personally know five people who have benefitted mightily from her work. I don't stand a chance of being elected.

Nevertheless, I have an agenda. In 2023 the water district took 41 million gallons from Knickerbocker Lake. In 2024, they took the maximum permitted: 51 million gallons of water. There has been legislation put forth so that the district can exceed the borrowing cap of $19M. There is a plan to build a pipeline for the lowball price of $20M. This would cost $45M over 20 years. That would be an annual interest payment of $1M. Users would be charged considerably more for the water than we pipe in. In the next six years, there will be zero grants from the current administration.

The previous administration operated the district almost faultlessly. However, the board of trustees and the administration has been extremely remiss when comes to long-term planning. It was easy to ignore the impending water shortage when retirement was looming. We have wells in East Boothbay that historically have produced 100,000 gallons a day. There is a problem with iron fouling, which can be solved. We dump millions of gallons in West Harbor Pond which is brackish. The water department can, for about $4M, solve the problems in East Boothbay and in West Harbor Pond. In addition, Little Knickerbocker is about five years away from being seperated from Knickerbocker Lake by the accretion of vegetation over the many years. 

I have some expertise as a geology major (never worked at it). When I returned from West Germany and the military, I operated a facility with the same filtration system for four years.

Brian McDonald

Boothbay