Water ban

Errin Chapin asked me a question about water ban issues, to which I did not know the answers, and so I asked Mike Sullivan to respond – Mike gave a great explanation –

Subject: RE: Water question

Errin & Pete, If we stopped supplying water to the Dover Sherborn schools tomorrow, we would still be under a water ban. The conditions for determining a water ban are set the the Division of Environmental Protection (DEP), a state agency When the flow in the Charles River at the Dover metering station falls below a certain level we must declare a water ban. We have plenty of water, in part, because over the years we purchased land to protect our water supply. The problem is that the state views the Charles River as one river system and bases it decisions on the entire Charles River basin. The communities that did little to protect their water supply and allowed wide-scale development are treated the same or in many cases better than the communities that acted to protect their water supply. The state views Medfield residential water customers as “water hogs” because our average daily residential water consumption is greater than 65 gallons/person. The Water Department has to submit a plan to show how it will reduce residential water consumption until it falls below the 65 gallon/person/per day level. I believe the national average is about 90 gallons’/person/day and New England is considered one of the water-richest areas of the country. But that doesn’t matter to DEP and to the local watershed associations; they want consumption to go down to 50 gallons/person/day. Commercial, industrial, educational and recreational water consumption is excluded from that calculation, so it doesn’t matter whether the Dover Sherborn schools are getting water from Medfield’s water supply. The water ban is in place and will stay in place as long as the river flow is below a certain level. I could go on at length about how unfair the DEP water regulations are, but it wouldn’t change things a bit.

One additional point, the Dover Sherborn schools are treated as a commercial customer and so they pay a higher rate for their water than Medfield residential customers. The Water & Sewer Commissioners are always looking for ways to raise revenues to pay for the capital improvements that we need to make to keep the system adequate. While not a huge revenue generator, the Dover Sherborn schools do contribute to the revenue stream and help somewhat to reduce the water rate increases.

Mike Sullivan

From: “Osler L. Peterson”
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2014 9:40 AM
To: “Errin Chapin”
Subject: RE: Water question

Errin,

I am embarrassed to say that is an issue about which I know little, so I will copy Mike Sullivan on my reply and ask him to let you know why the water to DSHS has been handled the way it has in the past and his plans for the future.

Best,
Pete
—– Original Message —–
From: Errin Chapin
To: “PETERSON | Law – Osler \”Pete\” Peterson”
Sent: 7/09/2014 4:29PM
Subject: Water question

Good afternoon!

I was wondering why we continue to sell Dover Sherborn high school water when we ourselves in the town are consistently faced with summer water bans.  Do you think that that issue should be readdressed on a yearly basis? Once our town absorbs the 40b complex and the state hospital development, I would think that selling water to Dover would cease altogether.  We do not have an unlimited water supply.

Is this something that needs to be addressed at  town meeting? And if so, how do we get that on the docket?

Thanks!

Happy July!

Errin