POLAND – Tenants of Brookdale Village trailer park will be the first Poland residents to receive water from the city of Auburn.

Park owner William Turner, along with co-owners Tim Cote and Mark Turner, will pay the Auburn Water and Sewerage District to extend a water main down Hardscrabble Road into Poland.

“After seeing the problems other places in town have had with their wells, we don’t want to take the chance of going through that,” said William Turner.

Brookdale Village recently received approval from Poland selectmen and Auburn water trustees to put in about 3,500 linear feet of 12-inch water main to serve the 135-unit trailer park, said Normand Lamie, general manager of Auburn’s water district.

Lamie estimated that extending the water lines will cost about $200,000. The pipe itself costs about $40 per linear foot, he said.

Auburn already supplies water to Morse Bros., a mulch company on Hardscrabble Road that straddles the line between Auburn and Poland, said Lamie. The district also provides sewer lines down Lewiston Junction and Empire roads in Poland for the Poland Spring Bottling Co. and Range Ponds State Park.

“But this would be the first customer outside the city to get water,” Lamie said. “I don’t really expect to get other requests because of the costs involved.”

The trailer park is currently served by a single well, and previous attempts to drill additional wells have failed, Turner said.

“We started talking about doing this a year ago,” he said. “This would give the people in our community a more abundant water supply.”

Paul Daignault, 80, has lived in the trailer park for 10 years. He said he has never had any complaints with the water. However, he recalled that two years ago drought conditions limited water use by park residents.

“We were asked not to do our laundry for a little while, but we never ran out,” Daignault said. “The water here has been clean, good water. As long as there’s no drought, we don’t have any problems.”

In addition to ample water supply, Turner cited changing standards for arsenic levels for drinking water and the advantage of having access to new fire hydrants as reasons for connecting to Auburn water.

“With insurance rates going through the roof, there will be a big difference in fire protection,” said Turner. “While there will be some cost to pay for the water, we think it will be partially offset by our insurance rates’ going down considerably.”

Poland selectmen recently approved putting in two fire hydrants as part of Turner’s water project request.

As for the arsenic levels, Turner said Brookdale Village currently meets federal Environmental Protection Agency standards. But those standards are expected to reach zero tolerance by 2006, Turner said.

“The state keeps tightening the regulations,” he said. “We just want to make sure that we don’t have a problem.”

Lamie expected water trustees to review and sign a contract with Brookdale Village at their regular meeting Wednesday, he said. The agreement also has to meet approval of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, which meets again in July.

Construction for the new water main should start in late August and take about four weeks, Lamie said. Workers will install the water line at the side of the road and will leave traffic on Hardscrabble Road uninterrupted during the project.

Before work begins, water district staff will hold a meeting for property owners and residents of Hardscrabble Road to answer questions, Lamie said.