BOURNE Wastewater infrastructure and how to fund it, as well as the process for hiring a new police chief, topped the list of articles before Bourne residents at the annual and special town meetings Monday night.
Just over 200 people showed up to vote on the 20-articles slate at the spring sessions at the Bourne Middle School gym.
Water protection fund
In an 80-19 vote, town meeting voters gave permission to the Board of Selectmen to discuss updating the Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund. Updating the fund would allow grants awarded the town to be used to help pay for costs associated with its intermunicipal sewer agreement with Wareham.
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.