Wiscasset's selectmen-appointed Climate Action Team (WCAT) got talking June 24 about how it could offer to help educate the public on wastewater treatment, as the town continues to work toward building a new plant.

Member James Crowley suggested starting the education effort early, and doing "a series of public events, open to everybody, about what it takes to run a wastewater treatment structure and the kind of projects that we're looking at, the kind of issues that we have to deal with going into the future, and why it costs what it does, and what it means to the town."

Economic Development Director Aaron Chrostowsky said the same 20 or 30, "engaged" people go to such events, and the selectboard and economic development advisory committee have been trying to figure out how to get more to show up. "That's the million-dollar question."

Any sewer education the team comes up with would go to the selectboard for review, members said. Other ideas for educating the public included making video tours of plants; playing those videos on a laptop at the art walk; submitting articles to the newspaper; and putting on the town website a diagram of the steps wastewater goes through. Said Chrostowsky, "You flush your toilet. Where does it go? Into the pipes, from the house, to the street, then down the street to a pump station, and then maybe to a couple other pump stations all along the way to the plant, and then once you get to the plant, what happens ... There's a lot going on there and, just to understand that, would be kind of I think mind-blowing, a little bit, on how it all works."

Member Leslie Roberts liked that idea and all the others. She had one caution, related to the June 9 town vote that rescinded the 2024 approval of moving the plant to public works. "We've got to be careful. We're educating the public, but we're not going to rehash the vote, or the misunderstandings, 'cause ... we can't stir the pot."

Also June 24, the team agreed to revisit its energy efficiency subcommittee's recommendations from six months ago, to air seal and insulate the town office building, transfer station office and Wiscasset Municipal Airport roof. That proposal, which then-Chair Cassaundra Rose sent Town Manager Dennis Simmons in January, also recommended an "Energy Efficiency capital spending plan that would augment the Town’s existing capital budget/plan to implement the final Maine Energy Efficiency Planning for Rural Communities recommendations for building improvements."