Pressure on water decision builds
The town of Reading is torn about where to get its water. The debate is important, local officials say, because it is a significant and irrevocable decision that will affect the town for decades to come.
Reading is forced to decide if it should build a new $23 million water treatment plant to process water drawn through wells from the Ipswich River watershed, one of the most stressed river basins in the nation, or abandon local wells and purchase all of the community's water from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. The authority pipes about 220 million gallons a day from reservoirs in central Massachusetts to 50 communities in Greater Boston.
Last week the Board of Selectmen voted 3-2 to deactivate town wells, but it is a choice that must be ratified by a two-thirds vote at an upcoming Town Meeting, tentatively scheduled for this summer. The local Conservation Commission recommends giving up the local water source, but the Water, Sewer and Storm Water Management Advisory Committee disagrees and believes that the town should build a new water treatment plant, an opinion shared by two selectmen.
''The split makes sense because it's such a big issue, important and complicated, and none of us have, without a doubt, the right answer," said Selectman Richard Schubert, who supports the construction of a new water treatment plant. ''There's no clear right or wrong. We're trying to guess at the future, and it warrants a bigger discussion at Town Meeting."
Local officials say that a 30-year cost projection based on current day assumptions about usage and other factors shows the two approaches would cost the same over time.
But Camille Anthony, chairwoman of the selectmen, said she voted for importing water because she believes that the Ipswich River is not a long-term, viable water source and sustaining town wells will only cause more headaches for the community.
''It's the toughest decision I've made in 12 years," Anthony said. ''But, I think the [state's Department of Environmental Protection] is going to keep coming down with more and more restrictions on how much water you can take from the river. The worst-case scenario is that we build a plant and then we're not able to use it to the extent we want to and have to buy more water from the [water authority]."
Reading will begin purchasing about 219 million gallons a year from the water authority May 1 to supplement the town's summer needs when the Ipswich River runs low. The town enforced stringent water conservation measures last summer, banning most outdoor water use, like watering lawns and washing cars.
The Department of Environmental Protection heeded environmental groups that have raised awareness about the fragile river ecosystem and cracked down on communities, restricting the amount of water towns can pump from the watershed. Earlier this month the state rejected appeals from Hamilton, Wenham, and Topsfield for relief from restrictions.
Kerry Mackin, executive director of the Ipswich River Watershed Association, has spent about a decade lobbying Reading and the state to reduce impacts on the river. She is pleased by the selectmen's recent vote and the state's evolving stance on protecting the river.
''This will mean that the Ipswich River won't get pumped dry anymore, with a huge environmental benefit," said Mackin. ''I think this signals a tipping point in the protection of the Ipswich. The handwriting is on the wall, wells are going to be restricted in the future. There's no other water source in the region where the damage caused by wells is so well documented."
If Reading Town Meeting decides to reverse the selectmen's vote and maintain local wells, there are some likely legal responses for the watershed association, said Mackin. The association already has an appeal pending regarding the Water Resource Commission's 2005 decision that approved Reading's purchase of water but, said Mackin, did not require enough supplemental water to properly protect the river. The watershed association also has a critical eye on the town's water withdrawal permit itself and says it could be challenged.
Looking ahead, Mackin hopes that Wilmington, which closed five of its wells in 2000 because of chemical contamination, will also decide to drop its dependency on the Ipswich and purchase all of its water from the water authority.
But Schubert wants the town to remain a player in the local watershed and participate with other communities in creating a broad solution for managing the shared and overtaxed resource. He is also leery of sacrificing local control of an essential resource and hitching the town's future to the water authority.
''Their policies, their decisions, are based on making revenue and bringing in money," said Schubert. ''If they bring in more and more people and some day down the road the resource becomes fragile and at risk, are they setting it up to fail, overburdening it? That could happen and we'd have no control."
Fred Laskey, the executive director of the water authority, concedes that the water supplier is interested in bringing in new customers to help pay down $5 billion in debt the agency collected through the Boston Harbor cleanup project and capital improvements, including a new ozone water treatment plant. But, said Laskey, the authority has more than enough water for Reading and future expansion.
''There's five years of storage in the Quabbin Reservoir. If it stopped raining today, without one drop of rain anywhere in the system, it would be two years before we'd have to institute drought restrictions," said Laskey. ''Even if you build out every inch of land inside 128, the most aggressive of build-outs, we'll still have enough water."
The water authority was shipping more water during the 1980s than it is today, thanks to water conservation efforts and infrastructure upgrades, Laskey said. Reading's water demand is small compared to the water authority's totals.
Laskey also points out that for a community to join the water authority's network it must go through a rigorous review by the state's Water Resource Commission, which ensures that the authority will only take on customers it can safely support.
''It's unlikely that we would ever want to do something irresponsible and, even if we wanted to, there's no way we'd get away with it," said Laskey. ''It's one of the most closely regulated issues in the environmental world."
Laskey said he believes the water hookup would be a good situation for Reading, the Ipswich River, and the water authority but stressed that it is a local decision and the town needs to come to its own conclusions.
''We have a great product and we're here if they need us," Laskey said. 