For the towns around the Quabbin Reservoir, managing worsening drought seasons comes with a bitter irony: they surround the essential clean water source for distant Greater Boston, and that means harsher water restrictions than the populous downstream cities. This week on The Codcast, Jennifer Smith talks with fellow CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jordan Wolman about his coverage of Quabbin watershed communities and their push for more state support.
MWRA
Posted inState Government
Healey, in new letter, urges MWRA to meet the ‘pressing needs’ of Quabbin Reservoir communities
Healey, through her letter to the head of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, is wading into an escalating battle between small towns along the Quabbin and the quasi-public agency that uses that water to serve 2.7 million residents in 61 communities mostly in and around Boston.
Posted inEnvironment
‘It’s like the Hunger Games’: Quabbin Reservoir towns take funding fight to Beacon Hill amid extended drought
A perfect storm of long-held resentments, the well-known story of the financial crunch squeezing small towns across the state, and an act of blameless chance — weather — is raising the stakes and stoking new tensions between these sparse towns and the powers that be in state government.
Posted inOpinion
Towns surrounding the Quabbin Reservoir protect the water for 2.7 million people in Eastern Mass. They’re getting financially starved in the process.
The state’s payments in lieu of taxes system treats Quabbin land as nearly worthless. In reality, it’s the most valuable land in Massachusetts: Without it, more than 2.7 million people across Eastern Massachusetts — 40 percent of the state’s population — would have no water.
Posted inOpinion
Haverhill sewage spill underscores urgent need to fund climate-related infrastructure
Massachusetts has spent decades investing in cleaning up our waterways, but we have not invested enough in maintaining and modernizing the infrastructure that keeps them clean.
Posted inOpinion
Next MWRA leader must have vision for tackling regional flooding risks, clean-up of Charles and Mystic rivers
We must hire a new MWRA executive director who is committed to finishing the job of cleaning our major waterways from these polluting combined sewer overflows.
Posted inEnvironment
Full of crap: Climate change could cause more sewage pollution for rivers, lakes, and beaches
“The Charles is a beloved resource. People should be able to use it without worrying about getting sick. As our climate changes and it gets hotter, people should be able to swim there.”
Posted inEnvironment
House eyes MWRA expansion
The MWRA was created by the Legislature in 1984 and currently provides wholesale water and sewer services to 3.1 million people and more than 5,500 businesses in 61 communities in eastern and central Massachusetts.
