Rumford Town Manager George O’Keefe, right, speaks at the Dec. 5 meeting of the Select Board about halting the practice of having the Fire Department shovel out the 200-plus hydrants due to a lack of personnel. At the Town Hall, from left, are Rumford Water District Superintendent John Halacy, Water District Trustee Brad Adley, Selectman Jim Theriault, Fire Chief Chris Reed and O’Keefe. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times

RUMFORD — The Select Board will discuss and possibly vote Thursday on whether to terminate the 1915 agreement between the Rumford Falls Village Corp. and the Rumford and Mexico Water Districts and discontinue having the fire department shovel out fire hydrants.

The meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. in the town hall.

For the past 109 years, firefighters have removed snow from the town’s 200-plus hydrants.

Town Manager George O’Keefe is recommending ending the Jan. 8, 1915, agreement, in part, because he supports the fire department’s request to no longer do the shoveling.

Fire Chief Chris Reed told the board at its meeting Dec. 5 that when the agreement was made, “There were 30 call force members and way fewer hydrants. So as we lost call force and we increased hydrants, we didn’t increase manpower.” The past few years “we’ve done it all on overtime.”

“I’m in agreement with the chief,” O’Keefe said, “that from a taxpayer standpoint, especially given communities of a similar size as ours, similar types of structure, the lack of universal service, rural communities in central or western Maine, we seem to be an outlier, and I don’t agree with it. My recommendation is to do away with the agreement, give the 30-day notification.”

Rumford Water District Superintendent John Halacy said, “All that would do, if you stopped the agreement, I guess you wouldn’t shovel the hydrants, and we wouldn’t either. You can stop the agreement, but it doesn’t put that on to us.

“In exchange for the town paying for the hydrant rentals, the Water District provides the town with water and the whole infrastructure behind it, the hydrants and making sure they work,” he said. “For you to get to them is up to you. Everything else is mechanical and operational, which is what we take care of.”

“It seems like the standard practice is for the water district to maintain and shovel those,” Select Board Chairperson Chris Brennick said.

“It doesn’t matter to us what other places do,” Halacy said. “This was our agreement.”

“We don’t have the manpower,” Rumford Water District Trustee Brad Adley said.

“What we’re paying you for right now does not include snow removal,” O’Keefe said, referring to the agreement. “We understand that. From the town point of view, we’d like to see that changed so that terms and conditions do include snow removal. And at some point in the future if that can be changed in such a way, there’s likely a modification and cost to the town at some point, we understand that. That’s not a bad thing.

“Right now, unfortunately, the way this is structured, taxpayers across the entire town are paying for the removal of snow from these hydrants, and unlike some other communities in Maine, Rumford is not a universal service community where there is water service at every single house in the town. So there are some justifiable concerns with that.”

He called the agreement “obsolete … we’re not even following what should be done, which, in my mind, lends credence to the idea that we should terminate this because this does not represent what is going on…” It says the Fire Department will inspect the hydrants.

“The first thing that this system provides for is fire protection,” Halacy said. “We wouldn’t have a system like this if it wasn’t for fire protection. And that’s what you’re paying for.”

“My recommendation remains that the town of Rumford withdraw from this agreement, O’Keefe said. “And if this means that at some point we have to settle this and figure it out, fine. But this agreement tells us that we must do things that we aren’t even currently doing.”