As soon as selectmen OK the contract, the firm lined up to engineer the hazardous fill cleanup at the northern tip of Birch Point Peninsula will be ready to start, Wiscasset Town Manager Dennis Simmons told the board Tuesday night, Jan. 2. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is fully funding the work, according to information Simmons provided.

The board approved the contract, 5-0. Simmons noted the firm has staff formerly with Ransom Consulting, which worked on the nearby ash ponds’ cleanup. “So they’re familiar with the area,” he told selectmen.

Among Sevee & Maher Engineers’ tasks, the firm will evaluate cleanup options based on feasibility, effectiveness, cost, schedule, climate change resilience, and their ability to meet the cleanup’s goal of protecting human health and the environment, the firm’s proposal states; the firm will work with the town to keep the public informed on the cleanup “and ultimate redevelopment of the site.”

In a Dec. 20 letter to Simmons, Sevee & Maher Engineers President Erik Clapp estimates the Cumberland firm’s services at $121,000, “which will not be exceeded without Wiscasset’s authorization.”

The funds will come from the $700,000 the EPA announced last spring it was awarding the town for planning, engineering, safe removal and disposal of inorganic contaminants and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contaminates, Simmons has said. The grant request to the EPA stated the North Point fill area is about 4.5 acres, lying north of the former Mason Station power plant.

“Based on some accounts, the North Point Fill Area was a dumping ground for refuse and building materials from the adjacent power plant. This theory is supported by the fact that in addition to ACM (asbestos-containing materials), soils contain benzo(a)pyrene and arsenic ...,” the grant request stated.

Also Jan. 2, the board nodded Huntoon Hill Grange’s request to run beano/bingo and games of chance in 2024; and learned the week of Jan. 1 plans for Wawenock Block repairs: Chair Sarah Whitfield read aloud a Jan. 2 message from general contractor Ocean Development LLC’s David McDonald. It stated staging will be set up to remove the last chimney, which is “compromised”; and the scaffolding will get weather protection and more planking with which to start the brick work.

“They have to take out another chimney? That stinks,” Selectman Pam Dunning said. Whitfield said of the update, “It’s something.” The project dates to 2021 when bricks fell from the pre-Civil War building onto the Main Street sidewalk.

Economic Development Director Aaron Chrostowsky will “take over as interim town manager” while Simmons is away later this month, including for the board’s next meeting, Jan. 16, Simmons said. As Whitfield will also be away, Vice Chair William “Bill” Maloney will chair the meeting, Whitfield said.