Asleep at the Switch…Water Management
We are arguably facing what could be the largest, most technically complicated infrastructure challenge the Town has had to deal with. And it deserves much more professional attention than it is getting.
Our water system has not been well maintained over the years and, according to an assessment of the water system by the engineering consulting firm of Wright-Pierce, the system needs $80+ million of maintenance and reinvestment. Their report was delivered to the Town three years ago and included 19 recommendations, or areas of deficiency. The Report attracted little or no action by DPW and the Select Board until this past spring. Even then, the action proposed by the Select Board was too little, too late, and incomplete in significant ways.
What steps were taken by the Select Board?
At the Annual Town Meeting in May, after its review of the Wright-Pierce Report, the Select Board sought to appropriate an unspecified amount for “locating, designing and constructing water tanks”. (Weston has three.) The first step was to be a replacement of the Paine’s Hill water storage tank, at a three-year-old estimated cost of $4.6 million. In connection with that, they also proposed changing the Town’s zoning by-law to eliminate any height restrictions on any Town-owned structures, starting with water tanks. The by-law change was voted down by a large margin. The proposal regarding the Paine’s Hill storage tank also failed to pass, probably for a number of reasons that have to do with our naïve approach to solving an extremely complex problem. For example:
Replacing the Paine’s Hill tank is a small part of an $80+ million program, and there was no operational or financial plan for dealing with the entirety of the problem. Other aspects of the entire program, at least as urgent as the tank, were not addressed.
Replacing a tank could require acquisition of conservation land adjacent to the existing site, and there was no information on the time and cost required to acquire the land.
There was no conversation about remedial steps that could be taken with respect to any or all of the tanks to bridge the gap between their current condition and the construction start date for their replacements.
Weston’s three tanks operate as a single interconnected system. Therefore, there would be no change in water system performance until all three tanks are upgraded.
The Wright-Pierce Report emphasized that our single conveyance of water from MWRA to Weston “represents a significant vulnerability” to water sourcing and should get immediate attention, but that was not addressed.
The issues relating to water “storage” are distinctly different from the issues relating to water “sourcing”. Both have an impact on water pressure and water security. Neither by itself will resolve both of those issues.
All of those issues and others, raised by Focus On Weston and others, are still unresolved.
Shortly after the May Town Meeting, Focus On Weston published an Open Letter to the Select Board regarding next steps. For those of you who might have missed that article, you can read it in full by following this LINK. It summarized a series of questions for the Select Board on the financial and operational challenges we face, most importantly the need that many of us perceived for the town to work with water system specialists to create a fully-engineered, fully-costed plan that would address all aspects of the 2019 Wright-Pierce Report, before bringing any water management proposal back to voters.
At the Select Board meeting on September 27th – after four months of inactivity on this issue – the Select Board decided instead that one or two special meetings with residents would be sufficient to acquaint voters with all of the reasons that the Paine’s Hill tank project should move forward with all due speed.
What’s the real problem?
The Select Board’s approach to water management is flawed in a number of significant ways:
First, the Select Board still doesn’t seem to understand that the Paine’s Hill storage tank is one small piece of a very big operational and financial problem, probably unlike any other project the Town has come up against in size, scope and complexity.
Second, the information which we are all relying upon is now almost four years old and has not been peer reviewed or updated. We should make sure we are dealing with a realistic set of requirements, with priorities, costs and timelines that reflect up-to-date pricing and detailed sequencing of all of the actions that need to take place.
Third, the Select Board seems to feel that a few meetings with residents will enable voters to become better informed and will help them see the light (that they didn’t see last May), and that will be sufficient to gain approval for the Paine’s Hill tank replacement. What the members of the Select Board still don’t seem to realize is that those kinds of meetings might be great for “communicating” with the few residents who might attend, but they do not constitute “planning” for a program of this magnitude.
Fourth, solving our water management challenges involves a number of technically and operationally complicated interdependencies – among water storage, water distribution, water sourcing, and system maintenance. Without addressing all of those complexities we will not wind up with a plan, just a single proposal to replace a single tank, and we will wind up with no more information than we have today about the financial and operational requirements for effectively and completely securing the town’s water supply. There is no board or committee that is part of Town government that has the experience or depth of knowledge to frame all of those issues, let alone prescribe fully-engineered, fully-costed solutions. That hole needs to be plugged, between now and next May.
Therefore what?
The water system assessment that the Town received in 2019, and the 19 recommendations it included, languished for three years, so the Select Board is now in “hurry up” mode. However, going fast shouldn’t be an excuse for skipping steps on the way to a real solution. Even assuming we know “what” needs to be done, we don’t seem to have any idea exactly “how” it would be done – in what sequence, over what time frame and at what cost. It is lazy to proceed with any single aspect of the water management issue without professional assurance that we have a detailed plan that will deliver a comprehensive solution on-time and on-budget. This is, after all, $80 million and our town’s water security we’re discussing.
What can you do?
First, as boring as the subject of water infrastructure might sound, this is a very high priority for Weston. It will make a difference if you communicate your concerns to the Select Board (selectboard@westonma.gov).
Second, at the very least, your attendance at the Town Meeting next May will be critically important.