About the Jackman Utility District
Water | Sewer | Water Source | Our System
Water History
In 1913 Father Joseph Forest started a corporation called Jackman Water, Light and Power Company which had 3 shareholders: Joseph Forest, Alexis Daigneault and Wilbrod Cleophas Martin. The purpose of the corporation was to furnish water and distribute electricity in Jackman, Moose River and Dennistown. When Father Forest passed away in 1941 the company was left to Hector Ferland. In 1963 Paul Bartley purchased the Jackman Water, Light and Power Company. The water taken from the Pond after this date is known to be chlorinated. In 1971 the Company was sold to the Jackman Water District. On Sept 27 th 1971 the Jackman Water District had its 1 st official meeting. The water in 1971 is known to be chlorinated and fluoridated.
Our community may well remember some of the financial struggles from the 1980's, as well as many hard decisions about the future of the Jackman Utility District. Time and money was spent investigating wells in the surrounding area and a slow sand filter plant. There were no guarantees at the time that the microfloc filter plant was the best solution, but we are proud to say that those of you involved in making those hard decisions in the 80’s to build the Facultative lagoons and those involved in the 90’s for the water treatment plant, made the right decisions!
The water filter plant is in its 24th year of operation. We are currently in compliance with all Federal and State Limits for both systems.
Sewer History
The Sewer District was incorporated and had its first official meeting on August 4 th 1969. The goal was to review how to conform to the regulations regarding Sanitation and Pollution. The Sewer Board focused on the design of a proposed sewer collection and treatment system. The two types of treatment investigated were oxidation ditches and aerated lagoons. The Sewer District purchased land from Percy Colby in 1970. That year the Town of Moose River did testing on the waters of Sandy Stream and met with the Water and Air Environment Committee and decided not to enter into the proposed sewer system because the water quality of Sandy Stream was not being degraded. All Moose River properties have private septic systems.
In 1980 DEP announced they would accept a facultative lagoon system with discharge into the Moose River without chlorination from September to April. Construction began in 1985 with a loan for $496,000 and $2.024 million in grants. In July of 1986 the first homes were allowed to be hooked into the new system. By Feb of 1987 the 1 st lagoon was full and plans were made to begin discharge into the Moose River early in 1988. By April of 1987 the 2nd lagoon was full.
At this time local business people started attending meetings because they were unhappy with the cost of the debt retirement. Many of these unhappy customers where being charged for more than one unit. They felt it was an unfair burden. One solution was to have the Town of Jackman take over the “burden” and spread it amongst all taxpayers for a healthier community. Ultimately the whole community came to an agreement and the Town of Jackman took over payment of this original loan of $496,000 although it remained in the Sewer District name. This original loan, which was a Maine Municipal Bond at about $32,000/year, was paid off in 2019.
The Water Source
Big Wood Pond has served as Jackman and Moose River’s primary source of water since 1911. Jackman Utility District provides drinking water to about 1,000 people. Big Wood Pond is a 2,150-acre (3.4 square miles) pond located west of Jackman. It holds approximately 17.8 billion gallons of water, which flushes 5.4 times per year. This means all the water in the lake flows through and down the Moose River 5 and a half times in a one year period, a fairly swift turnover rate.
As the pond is used for various activites, we encourage all users of Big Wood Pond to take into consideration that the lake is our public drinking water source when enjoying the lake and surrounding watershed. We have worked to develop a Source Water Protection Plan that allows safe drinking water to coexist with the use of Bigwood Pond and the watershed. We have a very active educational outreach program that was started in 2006 where we visit the school each spring to do education on water quality and our watershed. We also host tours and open houses, are part of a community leadership team, mail quarterly newsletters with our billing on various topics, continually post to social media educating the community about the work we do.
Our System
Water System
Raw water is pumped from the raw water pump house, located on Mill Road, to the Filter Plant, located at 28 Walton Street. The intake is approximately 600 feet of 8” cast and ductile iron pipe running along the bottom of the lake. The raw water flows by gravity through this pipe and fills a 30 foot deep well at the raw water pump house. There are 2 pumps that can pump up to 200 gpm each, of raw water, to the treatment plant. As the Raw water is pumped up to the filter plant it is injected with a coagulant, EC309. This coagulant has approximately an hour and a half of contact time as the raw water travels through an underground pipe up to the filter plant.
The treatment plant is made up of two treatment units, capable of filtering 100gpm each. These filters are made up of an up flow clarifier consisting of white plastic beads and a stainless steel screen, followed by a sand and anthracite filter bed. The raw water is injected with a coagulant aid 1160P and a small dose of additional coagulant, EC461, as the raw water enters the filter plant. This coagulant, and coagulant aid, makes the particles in the water form snowflake like particles that are sticky and become trapped in the up flow clarifier as the water travels up through it. The water then travels down through the anthracite sand filter bed to filter any remaining particles or floc left in the water that was not trapped in the clarifier. The water then flows into a 60,000-gallon clear well, an underground maze, where it is injected with a disinfectant, chlorine. The chlorine interacts with the water as it travels through the maze and if it encounters any microbial contaminant still left in the water after filtration, the contact time the maze provides gives the chlorine time to deactivate those microbial contaminants so they can not cause bodily harm once out in the distribution system.
Soda Ash is added to the finished water as part of our corrosion control program, as it is pumped from the clear well out into the distribution system to boost the pH to around a 7.8. We maintain a little above a 7 pH to help protect the pipes in the system from corrosion. Water below a 7.0 in pH may be corrosive and allow for leaching of materials from pipes into the water.
After treatment, the water is pumped to a 200,000 gallon underground reservoir located south of Jackman where it enters the distribution system. This reservoir provides storage of water for fire protection as well as being the source of pressure for our system. The daily average finished water pumped is 60,000 gallons. The distribution system is made up of about 7.5 miles of water mains serving approximately 450 service connections. Within this system there are 35 public and 5 private fire hydrants.
Wastewater System
The sewer system is now 35 years old. It consists of 6 lagoons (45 MG capacity), 7.25 miles of sewer mains, 165 manholes, 4 pump stations, 12 simplex stations and 457 service connections. JUD is licensed through the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to take in 83,000 gallons of raw sewage per day, and discharge up to 650,000 per day into the Moose River from November 1 st to March 31 st each year. We currently take in on average 70,000 gals per day, about 25.5 MG per year and discharge 25.8 million gallons a year. The discharge water is closely monitored and tested weekly, monthly and annually for certain parameters.
Our lagoons are facultative. They use microorganisms, which are bacteria and algae, too small to be seen by the naked eye, to decompose contaminants in the wastewater into water, gases and inert (neutral) substances. The microorganisms maintain a healthy community with a consistent supply of raw sewage. Dramatic changes in the amount of nutrients, chemicals, or “clean” water in the raw sewage can disrupt the healthy community of microorganisms and affect the lagoon performance eventually affecting the effluent released. Our current DEP permit does not allow storm drains, downspout, or sump pumps to be discharged into the sewer system. There is also a layer of sludge that settles on the bottom of the lagoon. The district has been closely monitoring the sludge levels in the lagoons.