ORLEANS A bright red crane stood out against a nearly cloudless blue spring sky, hoisting blocks of scaffolding from the site’s access road into a massive concrete foundation.
The scaffolding was part of a temporary support system for the pouring of the slab of the first floor of Orleans’ new $38.1 million wastewater treatment plant, which is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2022. For the past two years, Orleans streets also bustled with crews installing the pipes for the $21.4 million downtown sewer collection system.
This is a moment capping over two decades of contentious debate in Orleans, and one that Alan McClennen, a former longtime Orleans select board member, could scarcely have believed possible just a few years ago when the cost of the town’s wastewater cleanup plan seemed insurmountable.
ORLEANS When photographs were taken last September during groundbreaking for a wastewater treatment plant in Orleans, Gussie McKusick was in the mix.
She stood alongside a slate of officials that included state Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro; Kathleen Theoharides, secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs; and Cape Cod Commission Executive Director Kristy Senatori.
There were town and state officials and representatives from environmental organizations. While McKusick, 82, didn’t have her hand on one of the golden shovels but she certainly had a hand in getting the project across the finish line.
McKusick s steadfast work to preserve and protect the water quality of Orleans and the Cape as a whole have earned her accolades. She spent years pushing for a project that will cost taxpayers millions of dollars by the time it s completed.