by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

Heavy rains on top of snow and frozen ground last month led to two sewage overflow events in Machias, then to clam flat closures in Machiasport, and finally, to financial hardship for some Machiasport clammers and the dealers who buy from them. 

“Right now where clam digging is my full-time job, the closures are a big deal because they affect some of the best clamming we have in Machiasport,” said Alex Finlay. “This closure has cost us a bunch of days, and forced me to work other flats that are covered in ice and snow.”

The recent “Combined Sewage Overflow,” or CSO events in Machias took place during storms in the last week of February and will keep some downstream Machiasport flats closed until March 16.  

Machias’ wastewater overflow events have been steadily declining since the late 1980s, when they occurred roughly 15 times per year, to 2020, when they happened five times, to last year, when an overflow event happened once.

Still, the three-week flat closures remain a source of frustration for local shellfish dealers and Machiasport harvesters like Finlay. Clam prices have been rising steadily over the past few years, making winter harvesting more profitable. But it’s especially painful, says Finlay, if closures happen during the summer season, when softshell clams are in high demand.

“If we get a month or two of closures in the summer it could make or break your winter, forcing us to find work elsewhere,” said Finlay. 

Now, Machias is on the brink of all but eliminating the closures by means of a new sewer pump station, which could be completed next year.

Ridding the Maine coast of Combined Sewage Overflow (CSO) events has been an ongoing focus for the state of Maine since the late 1980s and a particular focus for Machias since 2015 when the town began working with Olver Associates, an engineering firm that since then has operated the town’s wastewater treatment plant.

According to data from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Olver, Machias has made significant strides, reducing its overall overflow in gallons by 95 percent since 2014. 

Machias Town Manager Bill Kitchen says the town wants to do better.

“It’s horrifying that something we did is closing clam flats, both from an ecological standpoint and from an economic standpoint for the individuals whose livelihoods depend on it,” said Kitchen. “The pump station project does actually seem to be moving along, there are so many projects that aren’t right now but in the grand scheme of the municipal world, this is a project that has made consistent headway over the last eight years.”

The problem lies almost entirely with a gravity-fed siphon used to transport wastewater from the southern side of Machias, along Elm Street, to the wastewater treatment plant on the other side of the river, which can become overwhelmed by heavy rains, especially when combined with  snowmelt.

Typically, it takes a storm of more than 2 inches or greater of rainfall to cause an overflow event, says Mike Riley, who manages the CSO program for Maine DEP. In the past 10 years, Riley notes the intensity of storms has increased, pushing more water into the Machias sewer system than it can quickly process.

To begin correcting the issue, two years ago Machias replaced its 1970s siphon with a new one, in a roughly $2 million project paid for mostly through a grant from DEP, and from a Community Development Block Grant. Working with towns to eliminate coastal wastewater issues is something Maine has been working on since 1994 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued its CSO control policy.

“If it were an easy problem to solve it would already be solved,” said Riley. “It took decades to get into this problem and it takes decades to get out of it.” 

It also takes money. In preparation for the new pump station, the town has $1.9 million set aside, from a combination of grants including a state grant for $1.3 million. Work was delayed due to the pandemic and now, says Olver Associates Senior Engineer and VP Annaleis Hafford, costs have risen.

“Now the timelines are lengthy, and the costs are higher,” said Hafford. “Everything is bidding 30 percent higher than a year ago.”

Hafford anticipates the town will be able to secure grant funding for the gap. Then the matter will be presented to Machias voters for approval.

Across the state, Maine DEP issues permits to 31 Maine towns up and down the coast for 34 CSO outlets, two of which are in Machias. In addition to the siphon CSO, Machias has another at the wastewater treatment plant itself. That one is not likely to ever close, says Riley, because it exists to protect the treatment plant from flooding. 

“But it would only discharge under pretty extreme flood events,” said Riley.

This DMR map shows, in section CA1, the Machiasport clam flats which are automatically temporarily closed for three weeks when the Machias sewer treatment facility experiences an overflow, or CSO, event. Two such events happened in February. Area P1, in red stripes, is always closed to shellfishing due to its proximity to the Machias sewer siphon. Area P2, also in red stripes, in Machiasport, is currently closed to shellfish activity P2 because it is a dilution zone around a point source of pollution discovered at a private residence situated within 250 feet of the shore. Another prohibited area not shown here, P3, exists near the discharge of the Downeast Correctional Facility wastewater treatment facility. When the conditions that led to the P2 and P3 prohibited zones are remediated, those areas could be reopened to shellfish activity. Map courtesy Maine Department of Marine Resources