COLRAIN — Residents of the Colrain Sewer District convened on Thursday for the first time in years to begin considering potential solutions for sewage processing after Barnhardt Manufacturing Co. ceases operations.

“No affordable solution has been found for properly disposing of sewage,” said Patrick Geary, who was elected Thursday to serve as a sewer commissioner alongside Dave Adams, Norman Ward and Matt Lovett. Jade Mortimer was chosen for clerk and Christa Snyder will serve as treasurer.

The village of Griswoldville includes 21 homes (which contain 26 residences, because many are duplexes) on Church Street, High Street, Griswoldville Street and one residence on Main Road that are part of the Colrain Sewer District, an independent entity created by an October 1997 legislative act empowering the residents to manage their own wastewater. Although the homes were originally built to house the plant’s workers, they are now home to a variety of residents who are left with the question of where their sewer will be processed following the plant’s pending closure, announced in early December.

“No one wants 26 dwellings to be condemned,” Geary said.

Although sewage processing at the 247 Main Road plant has been done at no cost to residents, meeting attendees voted to begin collecting $25 per month from each dwelling, to be paid quarterly. Geary said the fee will likely go up once residents know what will happen next in regards to sewage processing. The Sewer District currently has $12,000 in its account.

Attorney Donna MacNicol advised that Lewis Barnhardt, president of Barnhardt Manufacturing Co., spoke with a Colrain Selectboard member. According to MacNicol, Barnhardt said the company plans on keeping a skeleton crew in the plant until mid to late summer, despite initial beliefs that the plant would close by Feb. 1. The closure was previously described by Barnhardt as resulting from “business loss and other costs beyond our control” that made it financially unfeasible to keep the business open. While the crew is there, sewage processing will continue as usual.

The sewage processing plant opened 52 years ago and was updated in the late 1990s using grant money obtained by the town of Colrain.

“There are little districts like you all over western Massachusetts,” MacNicol said. “The legislature is really trying to solve the district’s problems in a quick way.”

The Sewer District has already begun working with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, state legislators and the United States Department of Agriculture on finding a long-term solution.

“Government moves slowly, but this is super warp speed,” said Randy Crochier, program manager of FRCOG’s Cooperative Public Health Service District. “We are doing everything we can to keep it moving.”

MacNicol said a grant is likely available from the USDA to perform a feasibility study for the plant. She said this would be the next step in deciding how to deal with the district’s sewage. There have been three feasibility studies conducted since the plant opened, but the Sewer District will need to conduct a new study because technology has changed greatly since then.

Aside from the USDA grant, MacNicol said state Rep. Natalie Blais, D-Deerfield, and state Sen. Paul Mark, D-Becket, are well aware of the emergency at hand in Colrain and will likely put forward budget earmarks to support the district.

The plant is much larger than the district homes’ need for sewage processing because it was constructed to be used for the industrial plant as well. The plant costs about $35,000 to function monthly, and Barnhardt Manufacturing Co. offered to give the plant to the district for free.

Betty Ringwood, a Colrain resident who does not live in the Sewer District, noted she spoke with Barnhardt as well as town officials and hopes to start a commission to work on bringing industry to town.

While having a new company move into the plant could solve the district’s immediate problems, MacNicol warned against it. She said there was a similar crisis before Barnhardt moved into the building in 2007. The building previously housed Fiberweb, a natural fiber business. Industry coming in solved the problem at the time, MacNicol said, but left the district completely unprepared for when Barnhardt announced its closure.

“Everyone seems to think a community septic system is the way to go,” Geary said.

A septic system is measured according to the number of bedrooms in each home, with an additional 110 gallons needed per bedroom per day. Since one building in the district is a church, the district also needs to account for an additional three gallons per seat per day, even though the building is only used once a week.

The district will need a septic system of fewer than 10,000 gallons, according to Crochier. He said he recently worked with Berkshire East Mountain Resort on installing a 9,900-gallon septic system that cost about $1 million dollars.

Bella Levavi can be reached at blevavi@recorder.com or 413-930-4579.

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