Greenville Town Meeting voters approved two articles for separate $400,000 wastewater treatment bonds on Saturday.
About 50 residents attended the meeting in the Mascenic Education Center and approved all 16 warrant articles in just under two hours. Warrant Articles 2 and 3, on wastewater treatment bonds, both passed with a three-fifths majority ballot vote.
Warrant Article 2 asked the town to raise and appropriate $400,000 to construct a chemical feed building at the Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Article 3 requested raising the same amount for engineering, repairing and construction of Wastewater Treatment Plant components identified in the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Service’s (DES) Notice of Findings the town received in December 2024.
Greenville resident Kevin Wilkins inquired about the outcome if neither bond passed.
“The DES identified things that were priority issues, including only having a single operational aeration tank,” Town Administrator Tara Sousa said. She added that a second tank previously had an aeration system installed but it wasn’t fastened, so it’s not operational. “Without that second tank, we don’t have the ability to transfer material between them to do maintenance.”
She said the facility needs chlorine contact baffles to reduce the amount of chlorine in filtered water. Once the sludge is removed from the water, chlorine is added, but the water can’t enter the water table without chlorination levels decreasing to zero percent after the fact, she noted.
“If DES doesn’t see that we’re making strides to repair these things, we’ll start getting daily fines,” she added.
The first bond passed 47-2, and the second passed 46-3.
The only other amendment offered was on Article 14, which was to enter into a five-year lease-to-purchase for a utility body truck with a hoist for the water and wastewater departments. The total cost of the truck was proposed to be $110,000. Members of the Select Board moved to increase the amount from $110,000 to $125,000, based on updated information on the cost of the vehicle.
The amendment passed in a voice vote, and then the amended article also passed.
Several other vehicle purchases were also approved, including $85,000 from the unassigned fund balance for a mid-sized SUV for the Fire Department, and $30,000 for Greenville’s share of a police cruiser.
The budget, set at $2.9 million, passed in a voice vote, as did the budgets for the Wastewater Department ($665,716) and the Water Department ($440,189), which will come from the wastewater and water revenues.
The town also approved additions to capital reserve accounts and expendable trusts, including $20,000 for the Green Bridge improvement fund, $10,000 for the Public Works equipment fund, $10,000 for pool repair, $25,000 for fire equipment, $10,000 for the police cruiser fund, $10,000 for the new fire station fund, $25,000 for highway maintenance and $29,731 for cemetery lots.
Road maintenance funds also were approved, including $110,000 from the unassigned fund balance for paving for Darling Hill Road, from Merriam Hill to the town line.