Council resists meters
State presses city on water measure
Despite pressure from the state to install residential water meters or face heavy fines and litigation, the Woburn City Council has voted to oppose the meters, setting up a possible showdown with the mayor or a standoff with the state.
Multiple aldermen said they knew Woburn probably would have to install meters - at an estimated cost of $5 million to put them in some 10,000 homes - but voted as a form of protest.
Mayor Thomas L. McLaughlin had committed the city two years ago to installing meters in an agreement signed with the state Department of Environmental Protection, but he did not tell the City Council or implement the plan, the aldermen said. That prompted the state to threaten Woburn with $750,000 or more in fines if the city does not commit to a plan by the end of this month to install the meters by 2013.
"I believe the mayor is committing us to do something he doesn't have the funding for," Charles E. Doherty, president of the City Council, said after a meeting on the issue last week. The council has the last word on spending, but the mayor and the city's lawyer say McLaughlin can sign agreements with the state on his own.
Water in Woburn - subject of the book and a movie, "A Civil Action" - is a fraught topic, and residential metering is a political "third rail," one official said. Even as most communities installed meters, Woburn avoided it for residents as it coped with various water-quality issues. Homeowners in the city's south end have complained for years about discoloration from aging pipes, which is not a health risk. Last year, the city had to shut down the water system for 48 hours after an animal crawled into an old tank and introduced E. coli bacteria into the water.
Officials had resisted installing meters in part because it would end the flat residential fee. Woburn households now pay $192 a year for water and $322 for sewer, regardless of usage. Ward 4 Alderman James Dwyer said low residential bills - compared with other communities - and the ability to use water freely at a fixed cost are two advantages enjoyed by Woburn residents that the City Council wants to preserve.
That may not be possible. McLaughlin said he had no choice but to sign the agreement committing Woburn to meters and other improvements.
The state had the upper hand because of problems McLaughlin inherited when he took office in January 2006. Woburn had installed a new pumping station near the high school without telling the state, and state environmental officials learned about it after investigating new complaints about brown water.
McLaughlin in June 2006 signed the consent order to resolve the situation, in exchange for a $5,750 fine, a retroactive application for the pumping station, and a series of infrastructure improvements. Most overlapped with water projects the city was developing - such as a new filtration system and pipe relining - that would later be funded by a $33.9 million bond approved by the council last year, but not water meters, which the state sought as a conservation measure.
Aside from hiring a consultant to study metering, Woburn ignored metering until state officials returned this winter, threatening six-figure fines and legal action. "DEP continues to press the issue," the city engineer wrote to the mayor on Feb. 21 in a letter later provided to aldermen. "It is getting more and more difficult to deflect this item since it is in our" consent order.
Doherty said the mayor and administrators either mismanaged the situation or intended to leave the council in the dark about the metering pledge.
McLaughlin said it was oversight. He said he prioritized water-quality improvements such as filtration and pipe relining to address residential concerns in his first term. Meters "fell to the background," said McLaughlin, who promised to work closely with the City Council going forward.
The mayor and state officials would not comment further on the situation, citing possible litigation.
Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.
