Alna can use Wiscasset Transfer Station through July 9 without signing a contract; then Wiscasset selectmen pick up the issue, according to an email Town Manager John O'Connell sent Alna Second Selectman Doug Baston Thursday.

O’Connell wrote to Baston, “This is very much a temporary, and unusual measure. Until July 9th Alna will be billed at the old rate. After that I cannot predict the outcome.”

It was part of a new series of emails as Alna seeks new terms and it and Wiscasset cope with the talks’ timing: The 2018-19 pact ends June 30.

The email thread carried the subject line: "Timing problem with Alna unsigned contract."

Meanwhile, Westport Island, the station’s other user, is going with the 2019-20 contract, according to First Selectman George Richardson. The board planned to approve it Monday night, July 1, Richardson said in a phone interview Friday. Voters already did, at the annual town meeting, he said.

Baston responded to O'Connell, Alna seeks a three-town committee or other fair way to revisit how towns chip in on the station's costs. "Up here, we have batted around counting dwelling units plus free-standing businesses. That gets us out of the business of looking at part-time population, snowbirds, home-based businesses, and woodlots," issues Alna selectmen have mulled in recent weeks.

Out of caution for possible protracted talks, Alna would want a shorter term contract, maybe quarter to quarter, Baston wrote earlier in the thread. "But the unfairness in the formula that we perceive does need serious attention."

The night before, at an Alna selectmen's meeting June 26, Baston told the station's superintendent Ron Lear that O'Connell had said Alna could go month to month while O'Connell sought something all the towns could support.

Lear hadn't heard that and asked the board where Alna was going to take its trash July 1, when the new contract year starts. Baston said he would check back with O'Connell. The Wiscasset Newspaper contacted O'Connell also. He said that when he spoke with Baston Wednesday it was a wide-ranging conversation and "I was trying to come up with something workable."

But a matter of that magnitude was more than he could decide on his own, O'Connell said. He would be speaking with a couple of selectmen on another item Thursday and would seek their guidance, he said.

He later sent Baston the email that keeps the station open to Alna until the Wiscasset board meets July 9.

Baston told the Wiscasset Newspaper he'll try to be there.

So will Lear. Both men and Wiscasset Selectmen's Chairman Judy Colby, all interviewed separately via phone Friday, said it was good the board was going to take up the matter. Said Colby, one of the members O'Connell consulted, "I agreed it had to come to the full board. We'll try to work with Alna and Westport to try to come to some agreement that benefits all three towns."

Lear was also hopeful. "I think it's good if they can get it ironed out.

"All I know is I'm taking trash and recycling."