Bristol Fire and Rescue plans to dig a 100,000-gallon pond and construct a small building on the Bristol/South Bristol Transfer Facility property to serve as a training facility.
Bristol Fire Chief Paul Leeman and Lt. Neil Kimball presented their preliminary plans for the project at an April 13 meeting of the Bristol Board of Selectmen.
“We need a local training facility to better our firefighter skills,” Leeman said. The facility, which Leeman described as Kimball’s “brainchild,” might also “be a way to attract new members,” he said.
“Before you can send anyone into a fire, you’ve got to do a 70-hour training,” Leeman said.
“We need your support in order to bring this forward,” Leeman said, addressing the board.
Kimball explained the department’s need for another water source. Currently, its primary source is the impoundment at the Bristol Mills dam.
Access to the dam can be problematic in the summer, as cars and swimmers clog the popular recreational area, Kimball said. The department could also use the pond for ice rescue training in the fall and spring.
If the natural water source at the site proves insufficient, the department could “haul the water in and keep refilling the pond as needed,” Kimball said, completing required pumper training in the process.
The department wants to fund the project privately, Kimball said. Eventually, it hopes to complement the pond with a building the size of a small garage.
The proposed location is in a field to the right of Transfer Road, on the way to the bulk waste area, Kimball said. The site would allow for parking on the opposite side of the road and a u-shaped driveway at the facility.
The department would develop and implement the plan “over a course of a number of years,” Leeman said. “It would be something the town could be proud of.”
According to Kimball, Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) employees will be in Bristol on unrelated business Tues., April 26 and would be willing to, with the board’s permission, conduct a preliminary site inspection.
The selectmen didn’t take official action on the proposal, but they didn’t object to the DEP inspection.
Smart meters will replace conventional analog meters and meter readers with two-way wireless communication.
Daniels’ briefing was substantially identical to his April 6 briefing of the Damariscotta Board of Selectmen (see “Sparse Attendance at Smart Meter Session” in the April 7 edition of The Lincoln County News).
As in Damariscotta, only two citizens without other business before the board attended the meeting.
CMP contractors will begin installing smart meters in Bristol in August, Daniels said.
Following the installation, CMP will continue to read the meters manually for “a couple months” in order to ensure the accuracy of “the readings we receive wirelessly,” Daniels said.
“Right now, we don’t have any radio communications,” Bristol Town Administrator Kristine Poland said. “I think that’s something we want to improve.”
“We need to know what’s going on in town,” Poland said. The town office needs the antenna in order to communicate effectively with the highway department and Bristol Fire and Rescue, she said.
