WISCASSET – A pair of lighthouses designed and built by a Maine company could be casting their beams over Vermont’s west coast by Aug. 7, National Lighthouse Day.

Atlantic Mechanical Inc. of Wiscasset has been awarded a $169,691 contract to put up wood replica lighthouses along the breakwater near Burlington’s U.S. Coast Guard station on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain.

Lt. Cmdr. William Smith of the Coast Guard’s Civil Engineering Unit based in Warwick, R.I., said the lighthouses will be functional navigational aids. They’ll replace a pair of breakwater lights now sitting on rusting steel poles, he said.

The Coast Guard was awarded $250,000 for the project in its fiscal 2002 budget, Smith said, adding that he was pleased that Atlantic’s bid came in so low. He also said the company’s experience and reputation ranked high in judging the five bids that were offered for the lighthouse work.

The wood-frame replicas will only be a fraction of the size of traditional lighthouses and, therefore, won’t be occupied.

The Coast Guard, which now operates under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has had a station in Burlington since 1948. While Vermont is New England’s only state not to have a seacoast, much of the state borders Champlain, the nation’s sixth-largest lake. Four lighthouses are found along the lake in Vermont; another six are on the New York side of the lake.

Smith said Atlantic still needs to gain final design approval of the two lighthouses it will build, but added that both should be ready before the end of August. He said Atlantic’s president, Larry Paul, indicated the project could be complete by the end of July.

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