The nearly $2 million Jordan Pond Road project will use directional boring to protect a 1931 Acadia National Park bridge.
Aug 07, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Maine Seacoast Mission.
MOUNT DESERT—After an executive session, August 3, the Mount Desert Selectboard had a quick meeting that moved forward multiple town projects and moved a school reorganization question onto its November ballot.
The town approved paying Enterprise Electric, Inc. up to $38,142 for directional boring on Jordan Pond Road. This is part of the town’s project to replace wastewater lines in the area.
Because this portion of the line is beneath an Acadian National Park carriage road, it needs to have borings.
“Two of the segments to be replaced are on either side of an Acadia National Park Carriage Road Bridge (Bridge). One of the segments is under the Bridge and requires directional boring for the installation of the segment,” according to a July 30 memo from Public Works Director Brian Henkel.
“Will you let us know when it’s happening so I can be there?” Selectboard member Rodney King asked.
The goal is to preserve the stone bridge at the road.
According to the National Park Service, the Jordan Pond Road Bridge was constructed in 1931 and “is one of 17 bridges constructed along 57 miles of carriage road on Mount Desert Island between 1917 and 1940. It carries the Seal Harbor (formerly Jordan Pond) road over the Day Mountain Carriage Road to provide a greater separation and sense of seclusion for the carriage road. As such the underside was faced with stone but the deck above for the town road was not ornamented.”
“The line that we’re replacing runs through the footings and under the crest of that bridge.So that’s why we have to go down and around,” Public Works Director Brian Henkel said.
He estimated the total linear distance to be over 100 feet. The quote is for 190 feet.
The board approved paying Ranger Construction up to $1,922,613 for the Jordan Pond Road sewer replacement. The bid, Henkel explained, is so much lower than the others, because the company was already in Bar Harbor doing work.
Famed landscape architect and gardener Beatrix Farrand “provided detailed planting recommendations, including a heavy cover of Scotch pine as well as mountain ash and white pine along the upper portions of the banks and big groups of sumac, Japanese maple, barberry, and sweetbriar rose, and various vines on the lower portions,” according to the park.
It is considered one of John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s “Classic 16” bridges.
OTHER BUSINESS
The board authorized Henkel to negotiate and contract engineering services for design, bidding, and construction observation of a salt/sand storage shed.
It also accepted a letter from Brian Silverman, a resident about the proposal to get rid of the public dumpsters that are currently at the Public Works garage.
The board accepted a $250 conditional monetary gift from Gilbert & Ildiko Butler Family Foundation, Inc. to support the Mount Desert Fire Department’s general operations.
It also declared the fire department’s 2007 GMC 4500TC box truck surplus equipment and authorized the fire chief to advertise for sale by competitive bid.
It also released $45,475.09 from the town’s fire equipment reserve. That money will be used to help purchase a Stryker Power Pro 2 ambulance cot.
“I have a question,” King said. “$45,000 for a cot. I’m assuming it’s not a canvas army cot.”
It’s a motorized cot, fire department officials explained, so that patients down’t have to be lifted physically by personnel, which they described as “backbreaking” work.
The base price is $37,000, but the fire department also purchased extra batteries, an extended service life, and other add-ons.
Selectboard member David MacDonald wanted to understand the history with the Northeast Harbor Ambulance Service and why an ambulance will be sold back to it.
According to Fire Chief Mike Bender when the town department instead of Northeast Harbor Ambulance Service began providing emergency medical services (EMS) for the town, the town purchased that ambulance from the ambulance service for $1.
They did so, Chief Bender said, “with the agreement that they had the right of first refusal when we’re done with it.”
“Why do they want it?” Selectboard member Martha Dudman asked.
“That’s an (ambulance) service question,” Chief Bender answered.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/U–eUYwhA9k?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
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