WHATELY — Wells in the Whately Water District are drying up, potentially putting the Whately Inn, 42 residences, and a few government buildings connected to the system in a predicament and causing town officials to look for solutions.
One answer may be to merge the independent water district with the town-run Whately Water Department.
“We have struggled to meet demand for years during the summer,” district Water Superintendent Nicholas Jones said Wednesday about declining water levels in the center of town. He explained that the district has two main wells, and “a third well that’s only approved as an emergency backup.”
“But even with that well going, we’re still tight on water. It’s something the district and the (Whately Water) Department have talked about for years,” Jones said, adding that “this year has been one of the hardest years because of the drought.
Those concerns ramped up when Jones presented the problems during a Water Department meeting Tuesday night, after which the department’s governing body talked about potential solutions.
Compounding the problem of declining water levels, the water superintendent said the district has struggled for a long time with staffing needs, meeting Department of Environmental Protection mandates, and achieving water testing requirements.
“Our water rates are high as a result,” he continued. “It’s really difficult to run a water district with just 40 hookups. In the long run, combining the two systems will provide a lot more security for the center of town.”
The Whately Water District was formed in the 1970s. Ten years later, when pesticides contaminated the eastern part of town in the 1980s, the district stepped up and gave water to the rest of the town. He said now the district is in need of help from the rest of town.
“The first step is to tell people the facts to get them thinking, ‘yeah, we need to do something,’” said Fred Orloski, a member of both the Water Department and the Select Board. Orloski said the town will hold a detailed informational session following a special Town Meeting scheduled for November.
Merging the two systems would come with a price, which Jones said is impossible to estimate this early. Discussion Tuesday centered around how both the district and the department can shoulder that expense and work together toward a positive result.
The first option discussed at the meeting would be to charge all residential customers in the district a roughly $3,000 hook-up fee to the department system.
A second option would be to charge a special water assessment fee, in addition to slightly raising water rates townwide, until the loan is paid off. For district customers that could mean paying about the same amount they are paying now for the duration of the loan, because district water rates are double department water rates.
To obtain an estimate, there was also talk of asking for about $40,000 to hire an engineer — half from the town (requiring authorization at a Town Meeting), the other half appropriated from the water district’s remaining funds. Board members also proposed a special Town Meeting warrant item to present to the Select Board and Finance Committee, asking the town to appropriate up to $20,000, half the cost of engineering.
In the meantime, Jones said he plans to go door-to-door in the center district asking people for their thoughts on the proposed merger.
“We’re making a questionnaire that we’re going to take door-to-door, with a couple of options, so people can weigh in on what option seems best,” Jones continued. “And we’re hoping to talk about it during the special Town Meeting in November.”