The Chester Hose Company has gone out to bid for a new fireboat, the funding for which is anticipated to come from the town’s allocation of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) monies if approved by citizens at a Wednesday, Dec. 15 town meeting.

Fire Chief James Grzybowski said the company’s current 23-foot boat, built in 1986, has served them well, but is deteriorating.

“Over time, especially more recently, the internal fuel tank has gone bad, and the boat is a fiberglass boat. So, it’s a major project to try to change that out, so we ended up putting an external tank on to run that. It’s just generally showing its age and wear and tear,” said Grzybowski in a phone interview.

The company plans to build the new boat using aluminum, which Grzybowski said will provide the town with a 40-year lifespan on the vessel and ensure that it can hold up to conditions in Chester Creek.

“We don’t trailer the boat,” said Grzybowski. “It stays on the river. It is docked just in the Chester Creek, right at the mouth of Chester Creek to go right into the [Connecticut] River.”

The Chester Hose Company is responsible for covering a wide swath of the Connecticut River and provides mutual aid to neighboring towns.

“We cover quite a bit of space because the Chester town line actually runs, if you look at the nautical maps, it follows the channel,” said Grzybwoski. “So, where Chester is, the channel is actually over on the East Haddam side. So, it’s quite a bit.”

The automatic mutual aid agreement covers space from Hamburg Cove in Lyme to Haddam Island State Park in Haddam.

Grzybowski said the company anticipates building a “26-foot landing craft, which would have a cabin on the rear part of the boat. It would be an eight-foot cabin with an open front, so that we have ample room to work on a patient.”

Side scan sonar, which is used for underwater search and recovery efforts, will also be incorporated into the build.

“Currently not many of the boats in the area have that. As they’ve been upgrading, they’ve been getting that,” said Grzybowski, adding that the new fireboat in Essex has the capability, but the only other current alternatives require requesting assistance from the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection or the State Police.

The vessel will also have firefighting capabilities.

“We are going to be fundraising to purchase a new [fire] pump because we want to try to keep the costs down,” said Grzybowski. “That’s been one of our biggest hurdles, especially with COVID-19, and everything, if we had done this boat three years ago, it probably would have cost us closer to $90,000 to build.”

It’s estimated that the new fireboat will cost approximately $160,000, which is a reflection of the supply chain issues that many industries are now facing as a result of the pandemic, according to Grzybwoski.

The allocation of a portion of the town’s ARPA funds for the new fireboat will come before citizens at a Dec. 15 town meeting. It will be part of a larger request, or plan, for how the town’s first tranche of ARPA funding is spent.

Citizens will also vote on several ordinances at this meeting, including a modification to the existing ordinance for Cedar Lake to ban motorboats and the use of boat trailers to help prevent aquatic invasive species from entering the lake.

The other ordinances pertain to restrictions on trash cans and garbage downtown and amending an existing ordinance related to building permit fees. For more information, visit chesterct.org.