Pressure grows to reexamine water-use limits

Water use in the suburbs is becoming a political issue.

The state Department of Environmental Protection's 2004 criteria to limit water use have prompted the 1,200-member Massachusetts Water Works Association , which includes local water system managers, to declare the rules should be overturned.

Towns, too, have complained, worried that they may not be able to provide enough water for residents and businesses -- a concern especially keen in several South Shore towns whose past levels of water use already exceed the limits .

In response, lawmakers on Beacon Hill drafted an amendment, attached to the budget, creating a so-called blue ribbon committee to examine state Water Management Act policy. The issue goes to a House-Senate conference committee this week.

The blue ribbon committee is a compromise measure; the measure questions the Department of Environmental Protection limits but does not reverse them. Senator James Timilty, a Democrat who represents Norton, Mansfield, Foxborough, Sharon, and Walpole, is one of about half a dozen sponsors.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, are defending the state limits, and are nervous about the municipal effort to reverse or rethink them.

As summer nears , it's not clear how the conflict will play out.

The vast majority of towns south of Boston rely on wells for their water supply, and the state policy -- which applies to new public wells, expansion of current wells, and five-year reviews of current wells -- would restrict the amount of water communities can pump from the ground in the future. Residential consumption would be capped at 65 gallons per person per day in what the state has determined to be high- and medium-stressed watershed basins, and 80 gallons per person per day in low-stressed and unassessed watersheds.

The rules would also limit summer water use in high- and medium-stressed basins to 1.2 times the amount of water used in the winter, regardless of population fluctuations. The intent is , in part, to discourage seasonal lawn and garden watering.

But coastal communities south of Boston would have difficulty meeting the 1.2 limit , given that summer water use in recent years has far exceeded that cap, according to figures submitted to the department.

Eleven of the 12 communities participating in the Greenscapes Program (a water conservation effort involving towns on the South Shore and funded by Department of Environmental Protection ) have summer-to-winter use ratios ranging from Marshfield's 1.89 to Hingham and Hull's 1.25 . Only Weymouth's 1.07 ratio meets the state standard .

According to the Department of Environmental Protection, the more severe limit, 65 gallons per person, and limited summer water use, would apply to areas in Hingham, Hull, Norwell, Weymouth, and Pembroke, which are home to what environmental officials classify as moderately stressed water basins.

The Massachusetts Water Works Association issued a harshly worded statement in April, challenging the state's rules, which were initially adopted two years ago. The association said the state was unfairly targeting water suppliers rather than look ing at the real cause for water shortages: development s that pave over large tracts of land, limiting the amount of rainfall that returns to the water table.

The association's ``white paper" on the issue also faulted the Department of Environmental Protection for adopting the rules ``without any consultation whatsoever with [the association], its members, or the numerous cities and towns affected, or any opportunity to comment before the policy was implemented."

Communities with large summer and tourist populations objected to the limits on seasonal fluctuations in water use, according to Senator Edward Augustus Jr ., a Worcester Democrat , who filed the budget amendment. ``The concern is over a one-size-fits-all approach," Augustus said.

The water works association is calling for a moratorium on the state policy until the issue could be studied further , a move that has been greeted with concern by environmentalists, who see value in restricting water use.

``Department of Environmental Protection regulatory oversight is very important," said Mettie Whipple , president of the Eel River Watershed Association in Plymouth. ``I'm concerned for the Eel River. It's been running low for three years now."

Low water in the Eel River has coincided with increasing water consumption by new residences and businesses in Plymouth, according to the watershed association. ``Local water interests want to access water," Whipple said, ``but there has to be balance."

Eighteen watershed associations wrote to their senators defending the state policy and calling it ``a reasonable limit by national standards."

The plan to establish a blue ribbon committee -- one that includes state officials, community representatives, environmentalists, and interest groups such as the water works association -- met with the approval of Plymouth's director of public works, George Crombie . ``We need to get everybody to sit down at the table to work this through."

Crombie, who said he has worked on ``both sides of the fence" -- as a public works director and a former Department of Environmental Protection regulator -- said water suppliers believed that the reporting requirements necessitated by the state to determine whether a watershed was a stressed basin was a poor use of their resources.

``I don't think anyone who I've talked to in the water industry is against good scrutiny of using water resources," he said. ``I think the debate is how much information -- when do you get into the law of diminishing returns?"

Regardless of challenges to particular regulations, Crombie said, it is ``absolutely critical" that the state protect water supplies. ``You can have a great water source polluted overnight," he said.

Robert Knox can be contacted at rc.knox@gmail.com.