The New Gloucester Select Board is considering making changes to the town transfer station. Several members said the current building is in poor condition. Rory Sweeting / Lakes Region Weekly

The New Gloucester Select Board spent much of its Dec. 16 meeting debating what, if any renovations should be done to fix the town’s waste transfer station, which has fallen into disrepair.

Select Board Vice Chair Stephen J. Hathorne discussed potential concerns regarding the building’s location. He said that the town had “kicked around” a lot of ideas related to the transfer station, such as doing a traffic study of the nearby roads. Hathorne recalled going to the building to take pictures, and finding that it had deteriorated to an “extremely disturbing” extent. On the outside, he noted, there was a long, extensive crack, the galvanized steel was corroded with exposed rebar, and one of the upper floors was in seriously poor condition.

“I just can’t believe we’ve had another building fall into disrepair, and this board doesn’t know anything about it,” said Hathorne, noting that the condition of the building was “quite shocking, to say the very least.”

Hathorne said that the town currently has $700,000 in the transfer station’s TIF, which he expected to be spent on fixing the building. The good thing about this building, Hathorne noted, was that, since it is made of concrete, repairs would be less expensive than some of their other options.

According to Town Manager Bill Kerbin, the transfer station building was built in the 1970s. Kerbin told the Lakes Region Weekly that he saw no imminent public safety concerns, but noted that there was serious concern about the ongoing disrepair of the building’s interior, particularly the flooring, and noted that the issue needed to be looked at and addressed going forward. Transfer station Director Jeff Pratt, meanwhile, noted that there were no concrete plans for the building at the moment, but that the first step would be to have an engineer come in and assess the site.

Board member Tammy Donovan said that repairs to the transfer station were long overdue, and acknowledged the need to think about the town employees and the longevity of the building. Donovan said that she was on board with whatever the first steps turned out to be, and looked forward to rectifying the issue. Hathorne was optimistic that the building was technically reparable, but wondered what the cost would be and how this would affect taxpayers.

Board member Peter Bragdon said buildings are not cheap to maintain, and the town has not put any money into maintaining the transfer station. While the floor, he said, could be fixed easily, Bragdon was more concerned about issues with the building’s water.

Public Works Director Ted Shane recalled that in 2018, the front and west ends of the building were repainted by professionals, and the crack that Hathorne had brought up was not there. Bragdon asked Shane about the floor, who said he had been told that before they poured concrete on the floor, they put down galvanized roofing material to hold the rebar in place. The roofing material doesn’t last forever, but it should never be removed because it’s always holding something else.

Donovan said that, in the short-term, the board needed to look at “band-aids” for the problem, and that if there was a full redesign, that could look different from what the town currently has.

Hathorne said that this wasn’t an emergency situation.

When asked by Donovan if the building was currently safe, Shane said he didn’t have the answer, but that he would ask for it, and was unsure whether his department could find the money for small fixes. Shane said that as soon as he got information, he would forward it to the town manager.

Select Board Chair Dustin Ward said that he was considering holding a workshop to give an idea of the safety, challenges and traffic flow. He asked to look at the previous plan, which was mostly derived from a 2008 study, and to bring in people to ask what the challenges and needs are, and consider the whole conversation that they were starting to have about a new building. Ward said that he wanted to make sure that people who were impacted by the new transfer station could lend their voice, while also trying to get a better understanding of the 2008 study.

Speaking to the Lakes Region Weekly, Kerbin said that the workshop would likely be held in March. Future plans for the transfer station would depend on the outcomes of the workshop.