Even though located at the edge of the Quabbin Reservoir that provides drinking water for millions of residents in and around Boston, Shutesbury has no municipal water supply and has spent almost $700,000 to address contamination from PFAS, or forever chemicals, in private wells.
Reading a letter it is sending to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which oversees the Quabbin, Shutesbury Select Board member Eric Stocker at a recent meeting noted the challenges faced by the town.
“Approximately 30% of our land is owned and controlled by the Quabbin,” Stocker said. “We have no municipal water supply and have worked diligently over the last two decades to adopt strict wetlands and watershed protections that benefit not only our town residents but also our Quabbin neighbors.”
In neighboring Pelham, Judith Eiseman, who chairs the Planning Board, wrote in a similar vein about the sacrifices that have been made in the small town.
“Protecting our residents’ as well as other towns’ water has resulted in higher taxes but not necessarily sufficient revenue to pay our public employees for highway, police and fire protection that they deserve,” Eiseman wrote. “All of this is a good thing for the environment and for water supply but goes unacknowledged by all the beneficiaries of our forward thinking and economic sacrifice.”
Robert Agoglia, chairman of the Pelham Select Board, wrote that, “One important way to acknowledge what we contribute is to dedicate funding in a fair and equitable manner to support the bordering towns.”
Their comments are all included in a recent memo titled “Quabbin Watershed Communities Unite: Asking for Respect and Recompense for Their Service” sent to Secretary Rebecca Tepper, of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, who also chairs MWRA’s board of directors.
The MWRA is a public authority established by the Legislature in 1984 to provide wholesale water and sewer services to 3.1 million people and more than 5,500 large industrial users in 61 metropolitan Boston communities.
The correspondence comes as a continued effort by Sen. Jo Comerford. D-Northampton, and Rep. Aaron Saunders, D-Ludlow, in support of legislation they have filed seeking better compensation for communities for their roles in protecting the Quabbin, and possibly giving them access to Quabbin water.
But in March, the MWRA Advisory Board, in response to “An Act relative to the Quabbin watershed and regional equity,” doubted the watershed communities’ current work to protect the Quabbin Reservoir while also stating that the towns were sufficiently compensated, and urging MWRA’s directors to oppose the legislation.
“Fairness isn’t an ever-expanding obligation,” Richard E. Raiche, chairman of the MWRA Advisory Board, wrote. “It isn’t a system where one side always pays while the other continues to receive. And it isn’t simply rewriting the rules whenever more is desired by one stakeholder in a longstanding, ongoing, and mutually beneficial system. This legislation places a disproportionate financial burden on MWRA ratepayers under the false flag of fairness.”
There are four main provisions in the legislation: increasing the payment in lieu of taxes to towns for watershed areas to include land under the Quabbin; reconfiguring the MWRA’s board of directors to better represent the region by adding two more people from western Massachusetts; creating a $35 million community fund from which Quabbin communities can draw money; and advancing a comprehensive potable water study for the four westernmost counties.
The latest memo, put out by Comerford’s office, notes that it also serves to commemorate the nearly 100-year anniversaries of the passage of the Ware River Act in 1926 and the Swift River Act in 1927, which caused Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott to be lost towns so the Quabbin could be created.
A compilation of comments from other towns surrounding the Quabbin are in the letter, including from Belchertown, Ware, New Salem, Petersham, Orange and Hardwick.
The letter notes that “The ability to sell water to communities with public well contamination or to large multi-use developments on the South Shore is made possible by the existence and preservation of high quality Quabbin water. There is an expectation that this water will always be available. When there is a declared statewide drought, and our communities are conserving water, the MWRA allows all of its full water users to continue using Quabbin water for outdoor watering. Western Massachusetts streams can run dry, river health can decline, and Quabbin reservoir levels can decrease, but clean water continues to be transported and treated each day to eastern communities.”
Belchertown Town Manager Steven J. Williams wrote in his letter that the town forfeits an estimated $9.5 million annually in potential tax revenue to preserve the watershed.
“Despite these sacrifices, there is no discussion of fair compensation or recognition. For the study to be effective and equitable, it must include a more localized approach, comprehensive engagement, and appropriate acknowledgment of the financial and environmental burdens borne by Quabbin communities.”
In Ware, Town Manager Stuart Beckley made similar comments: “Quabbin is part of the quality of life for this region, but that quality presents some limits on the ability of the region’s communities to provide services and address infrastructure.”
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.