BAR HARBOR – The planned renovation of the Duck Brook water treatment station is nearly $1 million over budget, forcing town councilors to go back to residents with another proposed bond issue to pay for the project.

The project was to be paid for out of a $4.3 million bond issue supported by town meeting in June 2011 for water and sewer improvements. But engineer Ron Hidu of Woodard and Curran engineers told councilors Tuesday that the cost estimate of $1.9 million he provided in advance of the June 2011 town meeting was nearly $1 million less than it should have been.

Mr. Hidu, who said he had come to Tuesday’s meeting “with my hat in my hand,” explained that once he began exploring the piping under the building, the code improvements necessary in the 1930s-era structure and the intricacies of Bar Harbor’s water system, “it ended up being a more complicated project to put together and a more complicated project to construct.”

Because the project is being driven by regulatory compliance issues, councilors felt they had no choice but to ask residents to authorize more money, and so asked town manager Dana Reed to set a special town meeting, to be held around the same time as the regular June town meeting.

“This is kind of embarrassing. We’ve gone to town meeting for this project, and now we’ve got to go back,” councilor Paul Paradis said.

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