HOUSATONIC — A group of Housatonic residents and their friends are gathering signatures for a petition to send to the governor in an effort to get the state to act on the troubled water utility serving the village.
Denise Forbes of Housatonic and Sharon Gregory of Great Barrington are the movers and shakers behind the petition calling on Gov. Charlie Baker “to take responsibility for a disastrous public health crisis that needs swift attention after being stalemated.”
The embattled Housatonic Water Works (HWW) has been the target of sharp criticism from customers and town officials for discolored water, insufficient fire hydrant pressure and — most recently — the presence of a potentially cancer-causing compound caused by the company’s disinfection process.
The petition, Mobilize DPU Action to Protect Public Health in Great Barrington, “speaks for itself,” Gregory said in a news release yesterday.
“The goal is to obtain as many signatures as possible in the next few weeks for presentation to the governor, the state auditor, our legislators and members of his staff,” said Gregory, a former chair of the Great Barrington Finance Committee and retired vice president of Jane Iredale Mineral Cosmetics. “Signatures from people of the Town of Great Barrington, both in the townships of Housatonic and Great Barrington, will plead their case.”
Volunteers will solicit signatures in the coming days in front of both the Great Barrington and Housatonic post offices and other select establishments. In addition to Gregory and Forbes, those gathering signatures include Lucinda Hastings, Patrick Hollenbeck, Beverly Nourse, Alan Soto, Jane Wright, and Tanuya Netzer, who lives at Flag Rock Village, a public housing complex whose residents have long complained of the water quality. Gregory said more volunteers are expected to join the others.
The petition asserts that HWW is “in violation” of state Department of Environmental Protection regulations related “to poor management processes, unremedied systems, and lack of investment over a long period of time.”
“As a result, the water puts the health of Housatonic residents at risk,” the petition states. “In contrast, the Great Barrington Fire District serves residents in other parts of town. It has an excellent track record and users of that public utility would never have accepted the unhealthy water being sold by HWW.”
The petition further calls for HWW to be taken through eminent domain, “converting it to a quasi-governmental organization with an independent board and oversight,” and asks for a moratorium on additional fees and rate increases, which would need approvals by the state Department of Public Utilities, a department Gregory has previously called “an immovable object.”
The petition cites a Sept. 20, 2020 letter from selectboard chair Steve Bannon to Baker asking “for some assistance from your office to help us ensure that water quality and infrastructure improvements can be expedited.”
The brown roily water, which the state acknowledges is a problem, is outside the DEP’s jurisdiction. According to Brian D. Harrington, deputy regional director for the bureau of water resources at the DEP, the state is primarily concerned with water quality and rates but not “esthetic” issues such as brown water that is otherwise safe to drink.
HWW ratepayers whose laundry and sinks have been stained by the discolored water feel otherwise. Some have even called for compensation for ruined items or the expensive home filtration systems they have installed.
But the presence of haloacetic acid compounds is another matter. DEP officials instructed HWW to conduct an analysis of the problem. The first analysis was deemed insufficient, so HWW released a second report.
After fielding complaints too numerous to count, the Great Barrington Selectboard commissioned two engineering firms to assess the condition and value of the system. AECOM, an infrastructure consulting group, recommended improvements to the HWW system that would cost more than $30 million — a number HWW treasurer Jim Mercer disputes.
If HWW were to raise its rates to pay for the needed infrastructure improvements, it would create an enormous imbalance in annual water rates between HWW customers and customers in the rest of the town whose drinking water needs are served by the quasi-public Great Barrington Fire District.
Town Manager Mark Pruhenski laid out four possible scenarios for town action: 1) the town acquires HWW and operates it as an enterprise fund; 2) the town acquires HWW and hands the system over to an independent water district serving HWW’s existing customer base; 3) the town acquires HWW and “works with the Fire District to potentially merge those two systems”; 4) or, in Pruhenski’s words, “the status quo, but with the town playing a more active role than it has in the past.”
Pruhenski will give an update on HWW, a standing agenda item, at the next selectboard meeting on Monday, Feb. 28. Mercer had not returned a message seeking comment by publication time. If he responds after publication, his statement will be added here as soon as possible.
