AUBURN — A Lake Auburn neighbor and critic of local watershed protection efforts said he may file a complaint with the Maine Public Utilities Commission within 30 days.

Dan Bilodeau, president of the Lake Auburn Watershed Neighborhood Association, has been developing his complaint since last fall. It asks the PUC to investigate the Lake Auburn Watershed Protection Commission over charges that some water quality protection measures are too strict and that the practice of purchasing land around the lake to protect water quality is unfair to Auburn taxpayers.

On Tuesday, Bilodeau presented his 10-point complaint to the watershed protection commission.

“The process affords the parties that have a problem to work it out beforehand,” Bilodeau said. “I don’t have my finger on a trigger here, to send this thing up to Augusta. I’m trying to do what the process is afforded, to get people to talk.”

But commission members dismissed the complaint.

“I’ve seen this complaint for a number of months, and I’d like to kind of put it to bed,” Bruce Rioux, commissioner and member of the Auburn Water District, said.

The commission controls 9,651 acres in Auburn, Turner, Minot, Hebron and Buckfield, all of it draining directly into Lake Auburn, the water supply for the Twin Cities. The commission was formed 18 years ago, created by the Auburn Water District and the City of Lewiston’s water department to protect the lake’s water quality.

The cities were granted a federal waiver in 1991 from having to filter Lake Auburn’s water before sending it along to residents. Part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Act required many water utilities to use filtration processes to clean up drinking water. Lake Auburn’s water was deemed clean enough to avoid having to pay to filter its water.

Through the commission, the Twin Cities’ water utilities pay to protect from development the land around the lake and tributaries that feed it. It’s also worked with the city of Auburn to create development rules around the lake and use rules for the lake water. For example, boats and fishing are allowed but swimming is not allowed in the lake.

Overall, the commission — authorized by the two cities — owns or controls 14 percent of the total land within watershed boundaries and 81 percent of shore land around Lake Auburn.

Bilodeau’s complaint has argued that some of the rules are outdated and too strict. For example, the city requires septic systems around Lake Auburn to be buried in at least 36 inches of undisturbed topsoil. That makes building septic systems too expensive and development around the lake too difficult.

The complaint also asks the PUC to investigate the watershed commission’s efforts to avoid having to pay for filtration and for not allowing swimming in the lake.

Rioux said that the cost of building a filtration plant would force the water utilities to double water rates in Lewiston and Auburn.

“I feel that what we have in place right now is obviously working, because the lake remains clean,” Rioux said. “So why change it? Why risk the change?”

Bilodeau said he hoped to present his 10-point complaint to the Auburn City Council at its May 16 meeting. Depending on their reaction, he’ll consider filing it with the PUC.

“I just think continued discussion on it in the short term is the right thing,” Bilodeau said. “The long term would obviously be the PUC process.”

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