SOUTHWICK – The town of Southwick is now one step closer to renewing their Water Withdrawal Permit.
The Southwick Board of Water Commissioners hosted a public hearing at the Town Hall Auditorium on Monday night. Department of Public Works Director Randy Brown was present for the meeting. The hearing was funded through a grant from the Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection.
The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission as well as Abt Associates were also present to help the public become aware of the Water Management Act through their findings.
A key finding was the public water demand in town. Residential takes up the majority of the water demand at 73%. The high percentage is a factor that is a concern for the board.
The percentage came from an online survey in which 314 accounts in town responded, rounding out to 13% of Southwick’s population. The results were taken from Apr. 11 to May. 1.
“Getting people to use water more effectively, I think will go a long towards improving stream water flows in Westfield River,” said Brown.
The outdoor water use was important research to see how exactly residents use their water. About 40% of the accounts said they watered their lawns and 69% use water to wash their cars. The hope for improvement is there as 73% strongly or moderately support limiting lawn watering.
Besides the residential impact, minimizing existing impacts and mitigating future withdrawals were also important findings during the presentation that PVPC and Abt conducted.
Patti Gambarini of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission is discussing her findings at the public hearing. June 20, 2016
With August considered a month with a very high usage of water, research was done on the August Net Groundwater Depletion of Southwick’s water. Anything more than 25% would mean a recommendation for minimization of water. It was found that the town’s water was at 114%. A minimization plan now has to be put in place and approved by the Mass DEP.
With the baseline allocation recently being at 0.69 millions of gallons per day, the recent demand was at 0.68.
As there also needs to be a mitigation plan to be made and approved by Mass DEP, there are two effective options that they town can take. Volume-based actions could include storm water recharge, purchasing water from Springfield and West Springfield, or using an infiltration to the sewer system.
Credit-based action is the other choice as private or storm water bylaws can be used to meet the crossing standards.
Brown was very appreciative of both PVPC and Abt for helping the water commission with the research and presentation.
“It was great to have ABT Associates and Pioneer Valley Planning guide us in this process,” said Brown. “They’ve gone through this process with other communities in the state and they were able to share those experiences with us.”
It is ultimately the hope that residents want to conserve water that will help renew the permit.
“On a very fundamental level, we all want to do the right thing,” said Patti Gambarini of PVPC. “I think our first question on the survey was about, “Do you try to conserve water?” and that response was really important.””
Moving forward, the next step for Brown and the rest of the board is to continue their conversations with Mass DEP and finalize the final language in the permit.
