Great Barrington — After a nearly two-hour public hearing on Zoom on Thursday, August 15, the Board of Health continued its session on a possible order against Housatonic Water Works to Thursday, August 22, at 6:30 p.m. Thursday’s session was the second such hearing on the possible order.
The draft order is being considered through Massachusetts General Law Chapter 111 Public Health, under Section 122 “Regulations relative to nuisances; examinations” and Section 123 “Abatement of nuisance by the owner; penalty.”
The Order to Correct, as reviewed at the hearing in draft form, would force HWW to conduct multiple actions if it is approved, including taking actions towards water-quality compliance, water testing, and would also force HWW to provide its customers with “with an alternative supply of safe, potable water.”
The original draft of the order included a section about random testing of HWW’s water supply. At the August 15 meeting, Board of Health Chair Michael Lanoue said that the testing should be held on a regular and not random basis.
Michael Hugo, director of policy and government relations at the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards, told the board that the water sampling should be conducted by an agent of the Board of Health. “Presumably, you’ll use the lab that’s in Lee [for water samples], because that’s the closest one to you that’s certified,” Hugo said. Hugo was referring to Microbac Laboratories in Lee.
“But I think right now [it’s being used] by Housatonic Water Works,” Hugo said. “I don’t think you want to use the same laboratory, although you can. You would be bringing the samples to the lab with a much faster turnaround, and it would be much more responsive. If you’re waiting seven days and all of a sudden something awful starts happening in the neighborhood with the water, and everybody starts calling on the same day, it would put yourselves at a disadvantage to say, ‘Well, we can’t go today because we just went yesterday.’”
“I would hope for the notice’s purpose that we don’t have to be so specific about how [the water sampling] is going to be done, but just to say that it’s going to be done using language [that the board would be] responsive to complaints,” said board member Peter Stanton. “I would hope that we could make decisions [pertaining to testing] down the road.”
Board of Health member Ruby Chang suggested that any water should be tested from both a customer’s tap and the source of HWW’s water at Long Pond Reservoir.
Eventually, the board decided to hold off on voting to approve the order until the draft order was reworked with board members’ suggestions.
Later on in the hearing, HWW Treasurer James Mercer and company attorney Robert Cox, of the law firm of Bowditch & Dewey of Boston, addressed the board. “The order that you’re proposing relies upon [Massachusetts General Law Chapter 111 Public Health, under Section 122] which authorizes the board to make regulations, but that’s not what you’re doing here,” Cox told the board. “You’re issuing an order, and as I heard others refer to it as an enforcement order. You cite and rely upon Chapter 111, Section 123 to issue an order. But that order in itself exceeds the Board of Health’s authority. [The United States] Congress has spoken here. Congress, decades ago, preempted the field of public drinking water and the regulation of public drinking water through the Safe Drinking Water Act.”
Cox said that the federal Environmental Protection Agency has designated the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to operate the program. “[The program] is extensive and comprehensive,” Cox said. “It is bound upon EPA expertise and the science that it brings to the table, especially when it comes to contaminants and drinking water, which is within the sole powers of the EPA.”
“Housatonic Water Works is a regulated public utility, which means that our operations, our rates, and our water quality are closely overseen by MassDEP and the Department of Public Utilities,” Mercer added. “As a certified water operator for HWW for 40 years, I can attest to the rigorous standards and procedures that guide our work when it comes to water quality. MassDEP has comprehensive oversight, including evaluating any modifications to our water treatment.”
Mercer proceeded to share with the board a testing schedule for contaminants that he said is required by MassDEP. “Different months, different items, different compounds, and different contaminants,” Mercer said. “Every utility gets a list of things that are required to be tested for, that’s every utility in the entire country. It’s pretty comprehensive.”
Mercer said the company regularly tests its water supply for manganese and Haloacetic Acids (HAA5). Both contaminants have been problematic for the company’s water supply for many years, and the company cites manganese as the source of the water’s a brownish color.
Mercer said that the company has an independent sampling process that involves certified lab personnel who go to different households to do testing.
“Can you explain to us what your thoughts are for turbidity and the brown water that has consumed a lot of the well-being of the Housatonic residents?” Chang asked Mercer.
“If you look at our system, it’s a reservoir, so it’s open to mother nature,” Mercer said. “Like many utilities across the Northeast, there has been climate change that has affected them all.”
Mercer said that the company plans to install a Greensand filtration system to address the manganese problems by next summer. “Going forward, we will not have to have the discoloration in the water anymore,” Mercer said. “The discoloration isn’t toxic. It’s aesthetic issues as far as the DEP is concerned. As far as the timetable, we are working on the design of the filtration system. We’ll be coming to the board when we have to put a new building up [for the system].”
Board member Chang questioned Mercer about the responsibility of the pipes on the HWW system. “The Safe Drinking Law states that the supplier is responsible [for the pipes] from the source to the tap,” Chang said. “But is that true? Who’s responsible for the private streets, or the line going from the Main Street line to the house? You know, who’s responsible for those pipes if they need to be changed or updated?”
“Alluding to the Safe Water Drinking Act, which we have heard people attest to, that a public water supplier is responsible from the source to the tap,” Lanoue added.
“The domains that we own, we maintain,” Mercer said. “If you look on our website, we have a section with service lines, and it shows where our responsibility begins for the homeowners or business owner’s responsibility begins.”
Later in the hearing, board member Stanton said, “I feel like we’re here because maybe there hasn’t been enough communication” from the company to its customers. “Maybe there would be more sympathy from the public if HWW was saying, ‘Hey, we’ve tested it. Yes, you can expect this brown water. Yes, we expect to resolve this.’” Stanton said. “But instead, they’re sitting there not feeling safe getting brown water. Everything from ruining their clothes to thinking that they’re supposed to drink or consume this stuff that they’re paying for, something that they can’t do, or feel safe around in their home.”
“I would suggest they look at the test results,” Mercer said. “They speak for themselves.”
