Lawmakers Push Plan to Upgrade Water Systems
With Bay State municipalities struggling to maintain aging water infrastructure systems, community leaders thirsting for relief welcomed a proposal put forward last week by a group of state senators to facilitate local projects.
Senate President Therese Murray and Sen. Jamie Eldridge, who chaired a commission examining the state’s water needs, filed legislation to allow for increased borrowing and state and local partnerships to help cities and towns meet their drinking water and wastewater infrastructure needs.
Democratic leaders pegged the overall financial need across the state at $21.4 billion over the next 20 years, and said the bill filed in the Senate would begin to address the funding gap without turning to new sources of state revenue.
The multi-faceted bill keys off a proposal to raise the spending cap for the Water Pollution Abatement Trust from $88 million a year to $138 million with flexible options for low-to-zero interest loans for municipalities to undertake expensive water projects and a principal forgiveness program for certain qualified projects.
"It will allow us to smartly address our challenges, increase our investments and ensure that our economic growth will not be slowed by the state of our water systems. And, because of the power of our local resources, we are not facing the same tough choices as other states. We will not need to compromise our environmental standards. In Massachusetts, we can have our water and drink it too," Murray said during a press conference unveiling the bill.
Locations like Cape Cod have been acutely impacted by nitrogen from septic systems and other sources that has hurt the water quality of bays and compromised public drinking water sources. On the North Shore, officials said, the Ipswich River reaches "catastrophically" low levels during seasonal fluctuations.
Dykema: A Help For Hopkinton
Rep. Carolyn Dykema, a Holliston Democrat, said Hopkinton, which holds the Charles River headwaters and two other aquifers, lacks the water infrastructure to hydrate the developing bio-tech cluster in town.
"They cannot fill that need because they have water constraints," Dykema said, adding that he arrived minutes after the legislation was unveiled in the Senate Reading Room because she had been meeting with the Department of Environmental Protection and Hopkinton officials.
Dykema, who served on a commission with Eldridge investigating needs throughout the state, filed a bond bill that would provide $200 million annually for 10 years to fund water infrastructure.
"The bill that I filed (H 690), which asks for the $2 billion, was the embodiment of the recommendations of the Water Infrastructure Finance Commission. However given the financial climate, I think that we all recognize that was certainly an ambitious goal," Dykema said. "I'm just hoping that we'll be able to make some material progress, and it sounds like what the Senate president has done is a great step forward on that."
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester Republican, agreed to co-sponsor the legislation.
"Water is a critical element of life, and we all must work to ensure that it is delivered sustainably and cost-effectively. By expanding state partnerships to include support for conservation efforts, promoting efficiency and careful planning, this legislation holds the promise of helping cities and towns address clean water and wastewater needs without putting municipal budgets in jeopardy and without having to rely on a crisis to get local infrastructure the attention it deserves," Tarr said.
In a presentation in March, water policy experts said the water shortage is most severe in the cities and towns around Interstate 495 and on Cape Cod.
The legislation would ease access to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority for municipalities that are adjacent to one of the 61 MWRA municipalities by authorizing the state to cover half of the $5 million entrance fee for new communities that want to join.
The MWRA service area stretches from as far north as Wilmington to Stoughton in the south, including much of the coastal towns north and south of Boston, and stretching as far west as Northborough and Worcester. Municipalities around Clinton and three municipalities close to Springfield are covered as well.
The Senate legislation also uses "water banking," allowing cities and towns to charge developers a fee to cover the costs of supplying water to the new businesses or residents.
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