WESTFIELD – The Water Commission voted earlier this week to approve several projects to install new or replace existing water lines, including installation of a loop needed to provide city water for a fire suppression system at a church being expanded on Ponders Hollow Road.
Water Resource Department Superintendent Dave Billips said this week that the city will extend an existing water line about 250 feet to provide water for a fire suppression system at the Pioneer Valley Baptist Church at 265 Ponders Hollow Road and may extend the line about 700 feet to create a looped system which improves water pressure and quality.
The church was issued site plan approval by the Planning Board to construct an addition to the structure and would need a more robust fire suppression system than what the church, which is on well water, could provide economically.
The issue is further complicated by the fact that a number of residents in the area of the church are connected to the Springfield water transmission line and not to city water. The Springfield water and Sewer Department is paying those residents to get off the transmission line and switch to city water or wells.
Billips said the Water Resource Department is performing the water line installation which will close the loop in that line. Currently there is a water line in Tannery Road which goes down Family Lane to connect with the Shaker Road line.
Ponders Hollow Road is an old county road which is currently intermittent because it has been cut into sections. One section exists on the north side of Little River and is basically an extension of South Broad Street. A second section is in the Birchwood neighborhood and the third section, where the water line loop will be installed, connects between Tannery and Shaker roads.
Billips said the department “will pay for materials and we’ll do the installation work ourselves, so there will be no cost to the church.”
The city is also replacing a water line which serves an apartment building at 40-42 Franklin at the request of the city engineer.
Billips said the existing water line serving the apartment “is in failure mode. (City Engineer) Mark (Cressotti) is concerned because next summer the city is going to install new sidewalks and pave Franklin Street. So this is a preemptive repair.”
Billips said the department negotiated with the property owner on a cost sharing plan to upgrade the failing water lines.
“The cost to the city is between $1,500 and $2,000,” Billips said.
The commission also voted to allow a developer to connect to a water line serving residents of North West Road. The connection with an eight-inch diameter main will be extended into the Angelica Estates subdivision which would be developed on land near Little River, with the subdivision road to the east side of Northwest Road across the street from Quarry Drive.
Billips said that line is being installed at the cost of the subdivision developer “at no cost to the city.”
