SINCLAIR, Maine — Aroostook County Commissioners recently accepted a $2.25 million U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development grant loan which will fund 75 percent of the costs for a new fire station in Sinclair.
The new station will replace an aging facility that is more than 80 years old. The station will be used by North Lakes Fire & Rescue, which serves many of the rural areas in the St. John Valley. North Lakes also has stations in Madawaska Lake and Cross Lake.
The new station is estimated to cost $3 million. The remaining $750,000 will be covered through the state’s unorganized territory fund and be paid over the next three years.
County Administrator Ryan Pelletier said during a meeting last fall that while lobbyists typically push back on funding items in the unorganized territory budget, this new fire station project had no opposition.
The new facility will feature numerous upgrades over the old building, including a new truck bay, updating wiring, and handicap-accessibility. It will also be on a new plot of land, as the old facility was on land provided by the Catholic church in the 1940s.
Commissioners in 2023 approved the purchase of 7.96 acres for $75,000 where the new fire station will be built.
Pelletier said that while it is now called a grant loan, the $2.25 million does not need to be repaid.
“This really was a congressional directed spending quote-on-quote ‘earmark’ from Senator Collins’ office,” Pelletier said, “but it got assigned to USDA and so now it goes through their regulatory process.”
Darren Woods, who is both North Lakes Fire & Rescue chief and the Aroostook County Emergency Management Agency director, said that the $2.25 million will not need to be paid back.
“Once you get the earmark, they give it to an agency, and the agency is just running it through their normal process,” Pelletier said. “And that’s what they have, is this grant loan program, but it is a 100 percent grant.”
Woods said that while progress has felt slow, the project is moving forward. The next steps are now to work with USDA and an architect and engineer, after which the project can go out to bid. At this point in the process, Woods said it is unclear when contractors would be able to break ground on the new fire station.
“While it may seem like the process is moving slowly, we are making consistently steady progress towards our goal,” Woods wrote in a North Lakes social media post after the meeting.
