GOV. MAURA HEALEY is calling on Greater Boston’s water provider to offer more robust support for struggling rural towns near the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts, writing in a new letter Wednesday that the agency should “more fully recognize” those communities.
Healey, through her letter to the head of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority that was shared with CommonWealth Beacon, is wading into an escalating battle between small towns along the Quabbin and the quasi-public agency that uses that water to serve 3.1 million residents in 61 communities mostly in and around Boston.
“Every day, these watershed communities provide an invaluable public service to the communities served by the MWRA system,” Healey wrote. “They continue to help protect the watershed’s natural resources while navigating infrastructure constraints, including limitations on their own water supply and economic development.”
A CommonWealth Beacon report published last week chronicled the tensions bubbling between state officials and the Quabbin communities.
Despite living alongside the Quabbin, a water body whose very creation about 100 years ago involved the flooding of four towns, these communities do not get their water from the reservoir. Instead, they rely on smaller municipal and private wells that have suffered in recent years from contamination and dry conditions.
An ongoing drought has only heightened tensions around water access, when Quabbin communities have at points been under more strict water restrictions than communities that receive Quabbin water in some cases from nearly 100 miles away.
These towns are also struggling financially, dealing with meager budgets as they are forced to lay off municipal staff, consolidate resources with other nearby towns, and ask their own residents to raise their property taxes. Healey’s top environmental official, Secretary Rebecca Tepper, heard these concerns directly at an MWRA board meeting last month in Belchertown, one of the Quabbin municipalities.
A loose coalition of local officials known as the Quabbin Stewards has now formed to coordinate a push for Beacon Hill to do more, including proposals in an environmental bond bill for a permanent seat for the region on the MWRA board and a new trust fund to pay for services like infrastructure and public safety.
They are also seeking increased payments in lieu of taxes from the state, or PILOTs, to compensate the towns for the state-owned land that bars economic development to preserve the Quabbin.
Five of the seven Quabbin “host communities” have received the same amount in PILOT payments in each of the past five fiscal years – essentially a decrease when adjusted for inflation – laying bare a sizable difference between what these towns earn per acre through state aid and what they generate per acre through property taxes on developed non-Quabbin land.
The MWRA has so far resisted those efforts. The agency’s advisory board opposes these proposed reforms, and the agency’s interim executive director, Stephen Estes-Smargiassi, previously warned in an interview with CommonWealth Beacon that meeting those demands would trigger hefty water rate increases for its customers.
The MWRA did not immediately return a request for comment on Healey’s letter.
In her letter to Estes-Smargiassi, Healey urged the MWRA to step up support for municipal police and fire departments on the front lines of protecting the Quabbin and provide technical expertise for these towns’ water needs.
She also wants the agency to convene a new body to “serve as a forum for voicing significant concerns and collaborating on productive solutions” and for MWRA localities to implement necessary water restrictions for “equity.”
“I am confident that a dedicated, collaborative effort by MWRA, working hand in hand with the Quabbin communities, will help them thrive while more meaningfully recognizing their essential role in protecting a clean and reliable water supply for millions of people in Massachusetts,” Healey wrote.
