FAIRFIELD -- Entrepreneur Michael Dube said he thought the Fairfield Planning Board had his back when he sank $25,000 into planning a sewage-treatment facility on U.S. Route 201.

He was wrong.

The Planning Board voted 4-0 this week denying Dube Environmental's permit to construct a 98 foot-by-32-foot treatment plant across the road from James D. Julia Auctioneer and Poulin's Antiques & Auctions.

Planners said Dube could not assure abutting land owners and area residents that there would not be a bad smell emitted from the plant and the permit application was denied.

"In this case, Mr. Dube could not guarantee there would be no odor," said Cynthia Tuttle, Fairfield code enforcement officer and clerk of the Planning Board. "Unfortunately, that was the bottom line."

Tuttle said the board's denial of the conditional-use permit application was based on the town's Land Use Ordinance and its air-quality provisions.

The board's decision came to a nearly packed house at the Fairfield Community Center.

Dube, 43, who said he was ready to buy 10 acres of land to erect the plant, was not pleased.

"It didn't work out in my favor," Dube said. "I had approached the Planning Board prior to the decision, and they were all behind me to start with.

"I thought that was kind of unreasonable. If I knew I would have had this kind of opposition, I wouldn't have spent the money. I was under the impression that it was a go."

He acknowledged that he couldn't guarantee there would not be an odor coming from the plant.

Planning Board Chairman Shelley Rudnicki said there is a total of seven members on the Planning Board, two of which are alternates and do not vote. She, as chairman, does not cast a vote unless there is a tie, leaving four voting members on the panel.

She said the potential for odor at the site was the deciding factor in the Planning Board vote, which was unanimous.

"There's an ordinance that has to do with air quality and that's why it was voted down," Rudnicki said. "There was a lot of discussion, a lot of questions from the people in the audience. It was an air quality issue."

Dube's plan was to build an enclosed facility with a filtration process to either eliminate or reduce odors. Trucks would come in with loads of sewage and then the doors would be closed.

Dube, of Sidney, said he also would build septic pipes that would connect to the sewer line in Shawmut for the liquid waste.

"They would have settling tanks," Fairfield Planning Board member Charles Matthews said before the meeting. "The liquid would go into the sewer line, and the solids would be trucked off to be used as compost or landfill."

Town Manager Paul Blanchette said the wastewater will end up at the Kennebec Sanitary Treatment District on Water Street in Waterville.

Auctioneer James Julia said he was pleased the permit was denied and added that the Town Council will be asked in the coming weeks to strengthen ordinances already on the books.

He said the odor from the plant would have upset business in the area now, and into the future.

"It should have been denied," Julia said of the Planning Board ruling. "The potential damage and loss to the community could have been significant."

Julia said he held his own ad hoc meeting at his auction barn prior to the Planning Board meeting and about 60 people showed up with their concerns about the possible treatment plant and what it would do to business all the way to the downtown area.

Dube said he does not plan to hire lawyers to fight the decision of the Planning Board. He said he will just have to look elsewhere for a new location.

He said he is looking at a possible site in Newport to put his business or even another, more suitable site, in Fairfield.

"I'm not going to buy the property and I'm not going to spend money for lawyers," he said.

Doug Harlow -- 474-9534, ext. 342

dharlow@centralmaine.com