Eastham Awards $50.5 Million Wastewater Treatment Contract to Waterline

EASTHAM — June 4, 2026 — Eastham Select Board votes 4-0 to award a $50.5 million wastewater treatment plant contract. The board approved the contract with Waterline at a special meeting June 4, authorizing the town manager to sign an agreement for $50,527,677 — roughly $6 million below pre-bid estimates. Capital Projects Committee Chair Jacqui Beebe said the board accepted the base bid plus an add-alternate for hard tank covers, which neighbors had requested for odor control, but declined a second add-alternate for external supplemental odor units, estimated at $2.5 million to $3 million, after site visits to Orleans revealed constant fan noise as a community problem and neither of the project's two engineering firms could agree the equipment was necessary. The contract is the first of six in the town's full wastewater system; two more bid packages are due back around June 17. The town faces a June 30 deadline to execute contracts under the state revolving fund's 2.4 percent financing program, and has an unresolved extension request to September 30 for three of the remaining contracts — a federal EPA audit of the SRF program is constraining the state's flexibility to grant it.