Maine law and rules
require that before a Health Inspection license to operate can be issued, all
restaurants, hotels, inns, B&Bs, campgrounds, youth camps and fairs and
festivals must show that they have safe drinking water and proper wastewater
disposal. Maine CDC’s Health Inspection, Drinking Water and Subsurface
Wastewater programs are co-located within the Division of Environmental Health,
which allows for fast turn-arounds for routine applications. For
complicated business proposals, technical teams representing all three programs
can be assembled quickly to find solutions for difficult drinking water or
wastewater challenges.
Governor LePage recently received
a letter from a business owner opening a new restaurant in rural Maine.
This business person wrote that he expected that the process would be
equivalent to “…pushing a boulder uphill.” He went on to say that “… to
the contrary, these people bent over backwards to help us get the forms
complete, inspect the water source, wastewater system, and the building to get
us open as quickly as possible.”
As a result, Governor LePage
invited the three staff named in the letter, Haig Brochu from the Drinking
Water Program, Sandi Clark from the Health Inspection Program and Jim Jacobsen
from the Subsurface Wastewater Unit, to his office to personally thank them for
their work. They were joined by DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew, Maine CDC
Director and Chief Operating Officer Kenneth Albert and Health Inspection
Supervisor Rebecca Walsh. Governor LePage presented each staff member with a
Governor’s coin and thanked them for their assistance.
