LIVERMORE — On Monday evening, select board members chose the plan they felt would work best for the town’s sand and salt shed. They were also told about the recent Maine Department of Environmental Protection inspection of the transfer station and actions needed to bring the facility into compliance.

At this year’s annual meeting, voters approved seeking financing of up to $20,000 for engineering costs for the shed.

The town has been on a state priority list since 1986. Livermore has a rating of 3 on a scale 1 to 4, with 4 being the most critical. The Municipal Sand/Salt Shed Facility program has been available to reimburse towns for some of the costs involved, but the state program will soon end.

Before an engineer can be hired to do the design work, selectpersons had to choose the type of facility they wanted. Several board members had visited sheds in nearby towns. Some of those towns used the state program, others did not.

Board members liked some features but disapproved of others. Leeds has a two-story setup that allows many tasks to be done at the same time. Livermore’s proposed site doesn’t have the grading needed for that.

Some sheds have 8-foot cement or tar walls. Hebron’s shed has 12-foot walls but no backfill. This is already causing problems for the building that was built less than a year ago.

Chairperson Peter Castonguay said treatments were needed every couple of years with cement walls. He suggested using tar and stressed the importance of backfilling.

Castonguay also proposed using a conveyor system rather than an excavator to fill the shed. He asked Road Foreman Roger Ferland to look into what the costs would be.

The board agreed to use the Buckfield facility as the basis for their shed and improve on it. The wood frame-style building will have scissor trusses and a midpoint cupola with a fan in it. The walls and ceiling will not have sheeting.

Administrative assistant Carrie Castonguay will contact the DEP’s Peter Coughlan to identify which engineers have designed this type of shed.

In other business, Carrie informed the board that Linda J. Butler from the DEP had inspected the transfer station. Many of the site and operation requirements met compliance standards, but a few did not.

Butler’s report listed several corrective actions that are needed. They include designating an interim storage area for hazardous/special waste; identifying an emergency hot loads area and labeling it as such; installing signs for each waste collection area, including what may not be left there; establishing a barrier between the closed landfill and the metals storage area by Oct. 31; and by year’s end submitting an application for minor revision to the transfer station license to receive approval for a reduced setback to the closed landfill. A revised operations manual must be submitted with that application.

Carrie said transfer station Manager Juanita Bryant already took care of many of the actions.

pharnden@sunmediagroup.net