About 800 water customers of the Housatonic Water Works in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, are facing soaring costs for poor quality drinking water that some worry contains a cancer-linked compound.
There are a lot of moving parts to this story, and Heather Bellow, a reporter with the Berkshire Eagle, has been closely following this.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: Let's begin, Heather, with this lingering issue of sometimes yellow or brown drinking water. Health regulatory authority and control, I think, falls under the purview of the town's Board of Health. What are they able to do about this situation?
Heather Bellow, Berkshire Eagle: Well, it's still a question who has the authority. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection are the ones who are in charge of water safety. But the Great Barrington Board of Health appears to also have some skin in the game, as it were, but it's unclear to what level.
They just proposed a correction order to try to find a way to help residents by forcing the company to, for instance, deliver five-gallon jugs of water to Housatonic Water Works customers every day and to do their own testing so they can see for themselves what's going on — and do it in their own manner and have the company pay for it.
So, it's still a question of who really does have the authority to force the company to at least help residents with what they're dealing with, particularly this summer, where it's been a summer with a bad bout of the tea- to coffee-colored water.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: In order to catch up with some deferred maintenance, the water company has estimated that it will take some about $4.5 million. And state regulators have approved that that money come from the water customers. What are residents’ bills looking like?
Well, they're going up 18% as of August 1. Those bills haven't hit yet, but they're going to be mailed out any day now. And then what will happen is the increases will be phased in over a five-year period. By 2028, we're looking at a 90% overall increase. So, people are not happy about that. And town officials are not happy either.
The Great Barrington Selectboard said this week that they're poised to file an appeal in Supreme Judicial Court. And the Department of Public Utilities told me that that rate hike will continue even if there is an appeal, so it doesn't get put on hold if there's an appeal.
So now the town is looking at going to court on two fronts, possibly. Last night the Board of Health was told by the Housatonic Water Works' attorney that [the board does] not have the authority to issue this correction order. And the town’s lawyer was at that meeting last night and is trying to help the board craft that order so that it will stand up in court. So, it's all moving very quickly right now.
Is it known how a grant that the water operator received to do some of this water quality improvement work will impact that 90% rate hike that customers are shouldering? The Water Works qualified for the grant because it serves a disadvantaged socioeconomic area. Is that on top of the $4.5 million or aside from the amount?
Yeah, that question has not yet been answered. It's a good question. The company got what I think is about $350,000 to treat the manganese filtration system. So that's part of that larger project. And there’s another system to deal with the disinfection byproduct compounds that were elevated over the years.
And we should note that is the first grant the company has received in around 20 years. It's unclear how this will affect what the final costs will be for customers.
I imagine that this doesn't just affect residential customers, but also businesses. There's got to be more than a few people worried about the water rates affecting the local economy.
Oh. for sure. And that's one of the reasons why one selectboard member — who is from Housatonic — said that the rate hike that was approved on July 31 is unjust.
And, you know, Housatonic is a low income, working class community. And a lot of people are not just paying their bills every month, but are also buying bottled water because they don't trust the water, or they're buying lots of filters that they have to keep replacing all the time. Yes. So, people's pocketbooks are definitely going to be affected.
While everybody waits for the next move, customers still open the tap and find water that can vary from yellow to brown or be somewhat fine depending on the weather?
Depending on the weather, for sure. And the company has said over the last couple of years that this manganese problem is climate-change related. However, you know, DPU documents show that there were water concerns decades ago, so it's unclear whether climate change is doing this.
But it is clear that warmer weather is one cause of this elevated manganese that turns the water these different shades. And, yes, it also depends on where you live. It depends on how old your house is. And there doesn't seem to be that much rhyme or reason for it. Some people live next door to someone who has perfectly clean water and their water is brown. But it does spike in the summer.
The Great Barrington Board of Health has continued the public hearing about this proposed correction order to August 22. And the Selectboard is continuing to work on their appeal. They have said that when it is written and filed, that they will post it on the town’s website.