COVID-19 in Waterville: How has it affected the town?

In Waterville, it’s easy to forget that the COVID-19 pandemic still exists. On a sunny day, the RiverWalk at Head of the Falls is full of children playing, carefree and maskless. In Selah Tea, customers sip and chat happily inside. In stores, the mask-wearing policies sometimes seem more like a suggestion than a hard rule. With only 11 cases in all of Kennebec County in the last two weeks, Waterville seems like an oasis in a chaotic world– yet, it hasn’t exactly escaped unscathed.

Students who live downtown might have noticed that Maine Made & More, which has been open for over 40 years, shut down permanently over the summer. Eric’s Restaurant and Catering, once located on College Avenue, also shut down permanently. Many other local businesses, while still open, have also been negatively affected by the pandemic. 

“There’s no question that COVID-19 has had a significant impact on Waterville and the surrounding area,” said local businessman and long-time Waterville resident Bill Mitchell in an interview with The Colby Echo. “The economics of Waterville have been impacted in a negative way, like everywhere else. The educational system is being put to the test, the healthcare system and first responders are definitely being put to the test.”

Mitchell owns multiple businesses in the Waterville area, including a real estate development company, an insurance agency, and the Elm, an events center located on Main Street. He is also a partner at the Proper Pig. While the Elm has been closed since March due to COVID-19 safety regulations, the Proper Pig– like many other restaurants on Main Street– has reopened for outdoors and limited indoor dining. 

“We’re trying to figure out what the landscape of a restaurant is once we can no longer do outdoor dining, so the jury is still out on that front,” Mitchell said of the Proper Pig’s plans going forward. “Hopefully, all of the restaurants will be able to remain open through the winter and find ways to adapt and adjust the indoor dining experience for our patrons.”

The icy Maine winters certainly prove a serious threat to many restaurants relying on outdoor seating to keep business up. The CDC labels indoor dining as a serious risk for spreading COVID-19, even if patrons are spaced 6 feet apart. More than that, however, the winter brings with it the possibility of a surge in cases.

“All it takes is one person to be exposed,” Mitchell claimed. “Then they find themselves in a crowd of people and then the next thing you know, we have a problem.”

While Waterville feels like an oasis, its rural location doesn’t protect it from a massive outbreak. An August 7 wedding reception in Millinocket, Maine, infected over 120 people and has resulted in at least five deaths. 

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Benjamin Neal, citing concerns about Waterville’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, recently made the decision to move with his family to Isleboro, a small island in the Penobscot Bay. Previously, Neal, his children, and his wife,  Elizabeth and Lee Ainslie Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Loren McClenachan, took part in the Faculty-in-Residence program and lived on campus.

“It’s a major concern for parents to try and find someplace they feel comfortable,” Neal said in an interview with The Colby Echo. “There’s a lot of uncertainty around that. As a parent, I don’t necessarily feel like there’s a best case option.”

Neal repeatedly emphasized that he thought the College has handled the pandemic excellently and that the majority of his anxiety arose from attitudes in Waterville towards COVID-19 and social distancing. Neal believes that his family’s decision to move is perhaps emblematic of a larger shift away from cities and back to rural life. 

“My brother is moving out of San Francisco to Tennessee and I’ve heard lots of other stories like that,” Neal said. “There’s been a 70-year trend of urbanization, of the depopulation of rural places, and perhaps, this is one part of the repopulation or end of that trend.” 

Eana Bacchiocchi ’21, a Brooklyn native and resident of Main Street Commons, also noticed a different attitude towards the pandemic in Waterville than in urban centers like New York City.

“In a lot of ways, Waterville feels like a very different world in terms of the pandemic,” Bacchiocchi said in an interview with The Colby Echo. “I think because the population density is so much lower than New York City and people are able to socially distance a bit more, I don’t see them wearing masks as diligently.”

Not everyone, however, shares this perspective. Mitchell claims that Waterville as a whole has taken the proper precautions and views the pandemic as a serious threat to their community and their livelihoods.

“I feel that most people are concerned with the social aspect, the danger that COVID-19 could bring into anybody’s life in terms of the social and the medical aspect,” Mitchell said. “I think a lot of people have held back in exposing themselves to other people. The amount of activity in and around restaurants is definitely down. So I think generally, there’s a very cautious view of exposure to COVID-19.”

According to Mitchell, while the pandemic has caused many businesses and families to suffer, Watervilians have rallied together to try and shop locally and support one another in these trying times. On weekends, the outdoor dining all down Main Street is filled with people, distanced six feet apart, and the weekly farmer’s market often draws such a crowd that there isn’t a parking spot left at Head of Falls. 

“What I’ve seen over and over, is people throughout the community coming together to support and be there for each other as much as possible,” Mitchell noted. “As challenging as it is, we’ve seen on multiple fronts an ongoing effort to help each other out through COVID-19, and when we do get to the other side of it we’ll all move on and it’ll be back to whatever the new normal will be, but I think we’ll be strong and solid once we come out of this.”

To learn more about supporting local businesses in Waterville, make sure to check out @SmallBusinessWaterville on Facebook and Waterville’s many stores, restaurants, and other businesses on Main Street. 

~Sarah Warner `21