BETHEL – If all goes as planned in the next 11 days, townspeople and children can expect to be swimming on the first day of August.

Not in nearby Songo Pond, nor an indoor pool, but in Bethel’s first groundwater-fed, man-made town pond at the new Angevine Park on North Road.

After Wednesday, the only major component left in the more than $300,000 project is a 16-foot-by-26-foot changing facility. And that should be going up soon, said Beach Committee Chairman Don Bennett.

“The biggest and most complex donation of tangible items is from Hancock Lumber,” Bennett said Tuesday afternoon. “They’re giving us a 16-by-26-foot building, including the gift of trusses, roofing, windows and doors.”

At 10:20 a.m. Wednesday, a crane from general contractor Bancroft Corp. lifted a 55-foot-long bridge into place at the park over Chapman Brook. The span connects a 40-car parking lot to the pond area and changing facility.

During Tuesday’s thunderstorms, a Western Maine Custom Builders crew built decking and railings for the steel bridge.

Bennett said the bridge was purchased for $12,000 from Jericho Bridge Works, a division of Isaacson Steel in New Hampshire.

The swimming pond has a maximum depth of 12 feet. It includes a sandy slope that provides a depth of two feet, extending 32 feet from the shore.

To keep the pool free of siltation, Bancroft put down a geotextile fabric and covered the entire pond bottom with 12 to 15 inches of high quality sand, said Town Manager Scott Cole.

The filtration is designed to stop clay and silt from becoming suspended in the water.

“According to a hydrologist’s recharge calculations, the pond will cleanse itself,” Cole said.

Test swims that he did earlier this month proved this fact, he added.

When he first learned of the project, Cole said he didn’t believe it was feasible.

“I was a closet skeptic then, but now that I have seen the science that has gone into the pond, it’s a winner,” he added.

The project’s cash outlay was $270,000. Of that, taxpayers fronted $170,000 over four separate budget periods, Cole said.

In-kind donations of materials, labor and equipment from several area businesses put the cost at more than $300,000.

“We have a very long list of people who contributed. Ultimately, we intend to produce a plaque or something to recognize them, whether it was for a dollar donation or $50,000,” Bennett added.

To get the project rolling, Ernest and Alberta Angevine, for whom the park is named, donated 5 acres off the North Road to the town.

The park and its one-acre sandy pool are 2.2 miles from Bethel Village.

The idea to build a pond came after town officials tried unsuccessfully to buy several hundred feet of frontage at the north end of Songo Pond in 1999 for $350,000.

Maintenance costs of the new swimming pond and park are expected to be $10,000 to $12,000 annually. That’s without a lifeguard, Cole said.

“Our initial thought was not to hire lifeguards. It’s, Swim at your own risk.’ We intend to see what the public does and adjust policies based on experience,” he added.