Emergency Response Crisis Averted

Fuel tank and generator purchase of $200k to keep Bar Harbor emergency services running

BAR HARBOR—On a night when about 620 Bar Harbor residents still didn’t have power because of a powerful wind and rain storm the day before, a split Town Council, on Tuesday, approved spending $233,000 in what was called an emergency services measure to both upgrade the fuel tank at the town’s Public Works facility and get a new generator for the facility.

The 12,000-gallon tank holds fuel and diesel. It failed inspection the previous Friday.

“It was discovered there is a defect between the outer and inner tank walls and there is water and sediment accumulating between the tanks,” Town Manager James Smith wrote in a report to the Council.

Why this matters, according to Fire Chief Matt Bartlett is that the fuel tanks at the Public Works building on the Crooked Road refill the emergency services vehicles such as firetrucks, police cruisers, and ambulances. They also, according to Public Works Director Bethany Leavitt, fuel the town plows, sanders, and even smaller machinery such as chainsaws, which are essential when clearing roadways during storms like Monday’s.

“If we don’t have the fuel, we won’t be able to do our job,” Bartlett said. “To me it’s an emergency situation. We need to have fuels 24 hours a day to do our job.”

To make matters worse, the fuel pumps are not connected to any kind of generator in the building’s complicated electrical system. This means that when there is no power at the building, those pumps can’t work.

That’s what happened Monday and into Tuesday when all the fire trucks could not refuel and ran on half tanks all day. The town could go to private gas stations to refuel, but that isn’t an assured thing in an emergency or during off hours.

“The tank itself is beyond its service life,” Leavitt said. It was actually repurposed from the old highway garage.

The cost is approximately $146,000 to replace the fuel tank. The concrete pad work will be done in house, but they have to enlarge the pad size for the fuel tank, Leavitt said. It will costs about $135,000 for the generator.

Both Bartlett and Leavitt spoke to having a second site in town but out of downtown proper for an emergency staging area with a backup generator and internet connectivity for emergencies. The building has a large conference room and a kitchen.

Councilors voted 5-1, with Vice Chair Gary Friedmann voting against, to authorize the purchase of a standby generator and new fuel system at the facility.

Friedmann said that Versant has spent millions bringing in power to Bar Harbor and the Prospect Street substation. “Because of that, we almost never lose power in downtown Bar Harbor,” he said. “Why should we be spending that kind of money for a command center out of town?”

He questioned whether the town needs a $282,000 system.

Bartlett said the emergency operation center is currently at the town’s fire station. The system would build redundancy.

“The real critical issue is that today we do have fuel needs and we have to be able to respond with that,” Town Manager James Smith said. If there was an event today, the town wouldn’t be able to properly respond, he said.

Councilor Maya Caines said, “They are asking for this to do their jobs and have what they need.”

Shank said that if there is a power outage, then none of the plows can fuel. That makes it seem like a fairly straight forward proposition, he said.

“Why are we charging into this whole thing so quickly?” Friedmann said.

Friedmann wondered why they have to power the entire building rather than just covering sections (like the fuel pumps rather than the conference room). He also suggested battery backups and if that could work instead to power the back-up systems for the fuel pumps and building. He said the town agreed that it would examine every opportunity to avoid using fossil fuels when it acknowledged that there were climate emergencies.

“This is a big one,” he said.

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