Five years ago, when officials in the Town of Milford combined the water treatment and wastewater treatment plants under one roof, they decided to create a new sign to reflect more than just the unity of two municipal utility departments.
Since Milford’s nickname is The Granite Town, and since it’s located in the Granite State of New Hampshire, a sign made of granite seemed like the only way to go, says Jim Dargie, operations foreman at the wastewater treatment plant.
“We take an awful lot of pride in what we do in this plant, and we wanted the sign to reflect that,” Dargie says. The town held a contest to design a town logo. Larry Anderson, wastewater plant superintendent at the time, worked with the town planning board to set the ground rules and choose the winner.
The winning design, from Milford resident Dwayne Hammond, depicts the historic town hall and town center gazebo, enclosed within an oval. “The logo is not only on our sign, but on T-shirts and the doors of our town trucks,” Dargie says.
It’s also carved into the 5-foot-high, 3-foot-wide, half-foot-thick New Hampshire granite sign that points the way to the treatment plant, which handles a daily flow of 2.15 mgd and a peak flow of 6.45 mgd. The sign is supported by two 1-foot-square granite pillars, and the decorative base is made of six 10-inch-wide granite stones, each five feet long. The entire structure is adorned with daylilies and an evergreen shrub.
The sign stands between a Dunkin Doughnuts shop and Shaw’s Shopping Plaza on State Highway 101A and is seen by almost everyone passing through town. “It’s right where the highway from Nashua narrows from four lanes to two lanes, so everybody sees it,” Dargie says.
Plant employees installed the sign in November 2007. The $5,050 cost was covered with funds for property supplies, half from the water budget and half from the wastewater budget. “It was fun to do, and I think everyone likes to see the sign,” says Dargie.
The Milford Wastewater Treatment Plant serves the nearly 16,000 residents with advanced secondary treatment using the activated sludge process.
