Great Barrington — After five months of debate, at their regular meeting on Monday, September 11, the Selectboard unanimously approved financial relief to Housatonic Water Works customers.
Back at the April 10 Selectboard meeting, Town Manager Mark Pruhenski announced that the town would be receiving $250,000 in relief funding from the state. He said that the $250,000 relief program for HWW customers would be funded by Chapter 268 of the Acts of 2022, a $3.76 billion economic development bill that was signed last November by then-Governor Charlie Baker.
Subsequently, at the April 10 meeting, at Pruhenski’s request, the Selectboard removed an annual town meeting article that would have sought approval by voters to appropriate $150,000 from the town’s Free Cash line item for HWW customers.
The granting of state aid led to several months of discussion and debate by the Selectboard on how a program to aid HWW customers would be implemented, and what HWW customers could use the aid funds for. Originally, the Selectboard discussed having the aid pay for filtration systems for HWW customers. Eventually, after numerous discussions, the board decided that the aid could be used to pay for filtration systems, along with bottled water and laundry-related expenses.
At the August 21 meeting, Pruhenski said that the decision to allow aid to be used in all three categories would allow more HWW customers to qualify for the aid. Pruhenski subsequently proposed reducing the aid from $500 to $300 per customer. He said that, by reducing the aid, the town would be able to accommodate 830 customers. “It’s unclear how many households are directly impacted and how many will apply for reimbursements,” Pruhenski wrote in his executive summary for the September 11 meeting. “If after six months from program launch that funding remains available, the Selectboard should revisit this discussion and consider providing additional funding to approved applicants. The program should remain in place until the funds are exhausted. Applications would be reviewed by a small team of volunteers participating in the senior property tax abatement program.”
At the September 11 meeting, board member Eric Gabriel said that he felt the original proposal for $500 of aid to HWW customers was “slightly better” than the reduction to $300 per customer. “But I’m happy to vote with the board to get this money out to the people,” Gabriel said. “I do think that it’s very important that people can go with the whole-house filtration system or some sort of filtration as opposed to the plastic [water bottles] portion that goes to landfills and all of that. All of this will be helpful, temporarily, until we move further along in the process.”
“I don’t think that this is perfect, but I don’t think anything we do with this money will be perfect or will be a perfect solution,” Selectboard member Ben Elliott said. “I do think that this is the best use of [the state funds].”
The Selectboard eventually unanimously approved giving $300 in funds to each HWW customer.
Residents at the meeting, however, complained that $300 was a low amount for aid. “That’s just not enough,” resident John Grogan said. “I’m sure you all know that and everything. But I know you guys have done a ton of work on this, and I appreciate it as a Housatonic resident.”
Resident Donna Jacobs told the Selectboard that she is concerned about the administrative aspects of providing aid to HWW customers. “If we’re going to be asking people to present their [receipts] for water, administratively, I think it’s going to be very hard for people to come up with their receipts,” Jacobs said. “I think we should just give everybody a $300 grant. Even though it may not be enough money, I think that it speaks to the fact that the residents of Housatonic have been suffering. This is a relief, that speaks to an admission, and it’s an acknowledgment that the town supports this community. Three hundred dollars is not enough money, but it’s a token of support.”
Housatonic resident Kathy Regan said that “it takes thousands of dollars to properly filter your home,” due to the continuing problems with HWW’s water. “[HWW water] has been overwhelming our filters most of the time, and we have to change the filters constantly, much more than recommended,” Regan said. “I don’t think there’s enough education going out with this. Everybody I spoke with is not aware it’s not just a drinking problem. HAA5 [Haloacetic Acids] can be absorbed internally and can be inhaled.” The problems with HAA5 levels in the HWW system have been going on for quite some time, including as recently as early August. “People are going to get this check, run out, buy a Brita water filter,” Regan said. “They think they can pour [through a water filtration pitcher] and get clean and safe drinking water. It’s simply not true.”
“People should not get a false sense of security that this $300 is going to provide them with any kind of filters that can potentially filter out this carcinogen,” Kathy Regan’s husband, Kevin Regan, said. “Three hundred dollars is not going to solve anything. It’s not going to provide any kind of filtration.”
In other Selectboard business relating to HWW: Town Manager Pruhenski spoke about an investigation into a garage fire on July 27 and the controversy over an HWW hydrant near the fire scene. The fire took place at 69 Division Street and was determined not to be suspicious. According to a press release issued by the town’s Fire Department, a hydrant nearby the property was determined not to be a viable water source.
A few weeks later, at a public meeting in late August, HWW treasurer and co-owner James Mercer denied all responsibility for the lack of water pressure in the hydrant. Mercer said that the hydrant “is a ‘service hydrant’ that is used for system maintenance such as flushing. It is not intended for firefighting.”
At the Sept. 11 meeting, Pruhenski said that water was brought to the scene via tankers as part of the first alarm protocols. “When the fire call came in, about 6,000 gallons of water [in a tanker] was brought to Division Street,” Pruhenski said. “A tanker task force was also dispatched with another 20,000 gallons, which is standard operating procedure. The fire was quickly extinguished, and that prevented any fire from spreading to the house [from the garage]. The point I want to make is that our Fire Department was prepared and at no time was there any shortage of water.”
Pruhenski said that “now we are aware that there are certain service hydrants in the system” and that information about which hydrants are service hydrants will be shared with firefighters and police officers. “The service hydrants have been properly marked since the incident, and you will now notice that there is a ring on each of them,” he said.
Resident Michelle Loubert disagreed with several of Pruhenski’s statements. “I live across the street from where the fire occurred, and we were the ones that called it in initially,” Loubert said. “It was not extinguished right away. I have a video where flames are coming out of the garage, and two firefighters are trying to get water out of the hydrant.” Loubert clarified that she was not being critical of the fire department. “The interim [fire chief] did an excellent job and he was the first on the scene,” Loubert said. “But the tanker wasn’t there immediately and it was a raging fire. It was not quickly under control.”
On Tuesday, September 12, the town, along with the towns of Stockbridge and West Stockbridge, filed petitions to intervene in the company’s request to the state’s Department of Public Utilities requesting a 112.7 percent overall revenue increase. The hearing on the rate increase request will be held at Monument Mountain Regional High School on Tuesday, September 26 at 7 p.m.
Meanwhile, the Great Barrington Selectboard scheduled an executive session for Wednesday, September 13 to, as per the meeting’s agenda, “to consider the purchase, exchange, lease or value of real estate, regarding Housatonic Water Works, because an open discussion may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body and not to return to a public session.”
