Great Barrington — The town’s Board of Health held a public hearing during their virtual meeting on Thursday, August 8, concerning a draft of an order against Housatonic Water Works.
This comes after members of the board had previously questioned whether or not they had any authority to take action against the long troubled company. At various meetings, however, including a Selectboard meeting on July 22, Selectboard Chair Steve Bannon insisted, “The Great Barrington Board of Health is responsible for the safety of the Housatonic Water Works users. When citizens were concerned about the discoloration and safety of their water, I suggested that they report their concerns directly to the Board of Health. The Great Barrington Selectboard is extremely concerned, but the regulatory authority in control of this is the Board of Health. The Board of Health is forwarding all complaints and concerns on to MassDEP.”
On July 31, the Board of Health held a meeting with an executive session to discuss possible action against HWW. On the same day, right before the board met, the Department of Public Utilities approved the company’s rate increase.
During the Board of Health’s August 8 virtual meeting, Chair Michael Lanoue, members Peter Stanton and Ruby Chang, and town Health Agent Rebecca Jurczyk were joined by Michael Hugo, director of policy and government relations at the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards, and James Starbard, state lead for Worcester-based RCAP Solutions.
“[A]ll of you in attendance no doubt know about the problems that Great Barrington customers of Housatonic Water Works face,” Lanoue said at the beginning of the meeting. “Since we are the health board of Great Barrington, we are primarily representing them. This issue with the water quality has been a historic issue in my over 10 years [on] the board.”
Lanoue said that board members consulted with the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards and the town attorney about what it could do in the situation facing HWW customers. “Our working assumption up until this point has been that there was not a huge amount that we could do,” he said. “But much to our surprise, we became aware that, in fact, there were things that we could do and avenues we could approach.”
Lanoue explained that this is what led the board to consider issuing an Order to Correct against the company for its continuing problems with its water quality. The draft Order to Correct was reviewed during the public hearing. However, Lanoue added that the draft order was not made public before the hearing.
After the hearing, The Berkshire Edge obtained the draft order via email from town Health Agent Jurczyk.
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 owner; penalty.”
The Order to Correct, as reviewed in draft form by the board, would force HWW to conduct multiple actions if it is approved:
- The order would force HWW to conduct random weekly testing of its water supply by a licensed site professional and an independent testing laboratory of the board’s choosing, all at the company’s expense “…until such time as the board has determined that the water supplied by [HWW] either does or does not constitute a continuing risk to the public health of the customers.” The tests would be conducted not less than seven days from the preceding tests and “in the absence of a declared weather-related emergency and with the permission of the Great Barrington Health Agent or other duly appointed and designated agent of the board, [HWW] shall be subject to a penalty of up to $1,000 per calendar day until such subsequent test is conducted.”
- The order would also force HWW to provide its customers with “with an alternative supply of safe, potable water, through the distribution and supply of bottled water in five gallon containers, on a daily basis, and an adequate means of dispensing said water, within seven days of this order,” all at the company’s expense. If the company violates this condition of the order, HWW would be subject to a penalty of $1,000 a day. “The board deems a violation as to any one household on any day to be a separate violation, subject to a separate penalty for each such household.”
- The Order to Correct would also require HWW to submit a work plan with date milestones for compliance in correcting water quality issues, along with requirements that the company fully document any and all work to its system, and that company representatives would appear before the board at meetings.
- The order would be enforced by the board and Health Agent Jurczyk, and leaves open the possibility for assistance in enforcement by the state’s Department of Public Health, Department of Environmental Protection, along with the local and State Police departments.
“I’m happy to say that we’re in a position to pursue this order,” Lanoue said. “We’re going to look at this order tonight and try to have a meaningful, positive impact on this problem that our residents are facing. I would just like to say at the outset of this that this will undoubtedly be a lengthy process, and I hope that people will be able to understand that we are endeavoring to do the best for our residents, and that we have approached this issue with an abundance of caution, and wanted to be sure with each step, because it is a big deal.”
The members of the board, along with Hugo and Starbard, went through most of the hearing discussing elements of the proposed order, including the potential criteria for HWW to test and sample its water system, and how HWW would be required to distribute potable water to customers, with Chang at one point bringing up that Great Barrington has a bylaw on its books banning drinking water in plastic bottles.
Eventually, the board agreed to continue the public hearing to Thursday, August 15, at 6:30 p.m.
See the draft Order to Correct as reviewed by the Board of Health at its public hearing here.
