BUCKSPORT — When the Bucks Mills Rod & Gun Club came before the Town Council this spring seeking to lease a piece of town-owned land in order to build a shooting range, approval seemed certain.

The land hadn’t been used in four years, and club members outlined plans for creating a safe facility. Town officials praised the club, which had lost its previous leased home in Orland, for its contributions to the community.

The request has now been tabled due to a seemingly unlikely pair of concerns that sprang up in the three and a half months since then: unanswered questions about an unmarked burial site and uncertainty over how much sewage the town will generate in the future.

When the request first came in, it was referred to the town’s Sewer Committee as a matter of procedure, because the land — a 29-acre parcel on Upper Long Pond Road — was where the town had previously spread sludge from its wastewater treatment plant.

That wasn’t seen as an obstacle at the time.

“We do not expect to ever spread sludge on that site again,” said then-Town Manager Roger Raymond at the Town Council’s April 12 meeting.

Raymond’s successor, Michael Brennan, shared information with Sewer Committee members July 26 that caused them to reconsider that claim.

Brennan said he checked with Bill Olver, the engineer who is working with the town in planning for a secondary wastewater treatment facility, and learned that when it opens — probably in a couple of years — the town will likely produce double the amount of sludge it is producing now.

Currently, the town has its sludge trucked to a facility in Plymouth. A 100 percent increase in sludge production, though, would increase costs and might prompt the town to look at using the Upper Long Pond Road site again.

Brennan said the town still has permits to spread sludge there, if it wants to.

“They’re very hard to get,” he said, referring to the permits. “We don’t want to give them up.”

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