Nearly a century after the state flooded four towns in the Swift River Valley to create the water supply for Greater Boston, Governor Maura Healey added her voice to the chorus of people calling for regional equity for residents bordering the Quabbin Reservoir.
For decades, Quabbin residents have helped protect Greater Boston’s water source, even though they generally don’t see a drop of it. Instead, many people get their water from private wells, which dry up in a drought, leaving even town halls that are a stone’s throw away from the reservoir with no potable water.
On Wednesday, Healey wrote a letter to Stephen Estes-Smargiassi, interim executive director at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, expressing the need for the state to “more fully recognize the unique contributions of the people and municipalities of the Quabbin watershed.”
In an emailed statement Thursday, the MWRA said it appreciates the governor’s letter encouraging more collaboration with the watershed communities. “We are proud of the long history of partnership with these municipalities to help steward the Quabbin,” MWRA spokesperson Sean Navin said, “and will continue to look for ways to engage in a supportive manner.”
State Senator Jo Comerford, who represents the Hampshire, Franklin, and Worcester district that includes the reservoir, called the governor’s letter “an unprecedented action” after decades of state neglect of the region.
When the reservoir was built in the 1930s, it cut off economic opportunity for about a dozen surrounding towns and led to a “fracturing and freezing of the region” whose effects are still felt today, she said. While there’s more work to be done, she added, Healey’s letter is “an important acknowledgement of what has been a pretty significant ill use of Western Mass. for Eastern Mass.’s gain.”
Comerford is one of several organizers helping a coalition of community leaders known as the Quabbin Watershed Stewards bring their fight for regional justice to the state level.
But it’s not water residents are after so much as equity. Among other legislative reforms, Quabbin stewards want a dedicated seat on the board of the MWRA, increased payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) for protecting state-owned land, and the establishment of a community trust fund to support infrastructure upkeep and other critical needs.
Because so much of Quabbin land is state-owned, and towns must abide by strict regulations around the reservoir, there’s limited economic opportunity for growth and revenue, said Matteo Pangallo, land use clerk for the town of Shutesbury. In addition, towns have taken it upon themselves to further protect the Quabbin by making thoughtful, good-faith decisions about what kind of zoning and businesses to allow that sometimes “stand contrary to the interests of economic development,” he said.
In her letter, Healey acknowledged the region’s past sacrifices and underscored the current “pressing needs” of the towns encircling the reservoir. “Every day, these watershed communities provide an invaluable public service to the communities served by the MWRA system,” she 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.”
Healey referenced her executive order creating a commission to review and recommend changes to the state’s PILOT program for state-owned land. She also noted the commission is “well underway,” hosting listening sessions across the state, and outlined ways in which the Commonwealth is demonstrating its commitment to recognizing the watershed towns. The Mass Ready Act, for example, proposed that the MWRA make two years of annual payments of $50,000 to the communities, in addition to the existing PILOT, as “an immediate acknowledgement of these communities’ needs,” she said.
The MWRA spokesperson said staff are “exploring all of these suggestions” and considering next steps.
Pangallo, the Shutesbury land use clerk, said he was “delighted” to see Healey’s letter and hopes the increased visibility of the area’s disparities leads to real change.
“The folks out here who are working on Quabbin equity, we’re looking to the east, hoping to find partners who understand the symbiotic relationship between our two regions, as well as the extreme disparity between what the Quabbin land is truly worth and the real pittance that the current PILOT system values it at,” he said.
“Governor Healey’s letter suggests she understands that,” he added. “I hope it gets us closer to fulfilling the ideal of being a Commonwealth, where we take care of each other, regardless of which part of the state we live in.”
Brooke Hauser can be reached at brooke.hauser@globe.com. Follow her @brookehauser.