A group of Quabbin watershed towns are pushing for
legislation to create a trust fund financed by MWRA communities to pay towns that border the Quabbin. It’s a creative financing solution that seems duplicative, since the state already
compensates these communities. But the effort points to a real need: many communities in Massachusetts lack a reliable water source.
[...]
Before Massachusetts’ water problems worsen, the state’s
Water Resources Commission should embark on the creation of a statewide water plan. Planning could explore what it would take to provide every region with reliable water and could be used to prioritize where the state spends its money. A big part of this would probably be looking at which communities should be supported to join the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which is the state’s most reliable water source.
[...]
As other regions struggle to reliably access water, the MWRA conducted
four expansion studies over the past few years, examining what it would take to provide water to communities in the MetroWest area, the Ipswich River basin, the South Shore, and, most recently, the Quabbin Reservoir watershed communities.
There are myriad reasons why these communities could use the water. Some Quabbin communities lack any municipal water. The Ipswich River Basin is considered “stressed,” meaning there’s not enough water to meet the demand, so towns often face water restrictions, like limiting lawn irrigation. The South Shore faces similar supply issues. Communities have had water contaminated by PFAS, chemicals that can cause health risks, then they must spend money treating the water.
A lack of water constrains development. Weymouth, for example,
considered joining the MWRA as part of a plan to redevelop the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station, since Weymouth’s current water sources can’t meet the demand for an envisioned
4,000 new units and 10 million square feet of commercial space.
But the MWRA doesn’t have capacity to do all these expansions, and the cost of expanding could be prohibitive, particularly for smaller communities. For example, the
Quabbin area study found that the cost of bringing Quabbin water to New Salem and three other towns would have cost $215.4 million in 2024, while finding a new groundwater source to serve New Salem and its neighbors would cost $112.4 million. Expanding water to the
South Shore could cost up to $1.25 billion (in 2022 dollars) to cover 10 communities. Projects in the
Ipswich River Basin and
MetroWest could cost anywhere from $110 million to $1.1 billion, depending on how many communities are served.
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