WESTFIELD – Mayor Brian P. Sullivan is seeking a $13 million bond for Westfield’s wells. At the Mayor’s coffee hour this week, Sullivan said the bond is for a carbon filtration system on wells one and two, and for the GAC water filtration facility to treat water from wells seven and eight where perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) caused the two wells to be offline.
Funds from the bond will also replace the water tank on East Mountain Road, and to cross connect with the City of Springfield, which gets its water from Granville Reservoir, on an emergency basis.
Mayor’s Coffee Hour was held at Mercy Adult Day Center on Monday.
Sullivan told the Chamber of Commerce members gathered Monday at Mercy Adult Day Care that some of the work that will be done is the direct result of contaminated wells, and some is to better manage and protect Westfield’s water. “The groundbreaking will be done very quickly on wells seven and eight,” the Mayor said.
“We will have three filtration plants filtering water coming out of the wells,” Sullivan said. He also said that no water that was affected is being pumped into houses. “As soon as that happened, wells were taken offline,” he said.
Last year, the City Council passed a $5 million bond for the work to be done on Wells seven and eight, but it wasn’t enough, according to the Mayor.
Sullivan also said that Westfield is seeking damages from three manufacturers of aqueous film forming foam, known as firefighting foam, which was used to extinguish jet fuel fires, which have been identified by the U.S. EPA as a health hazard. The three manufacturers are 3M Company, Chemguard, Inc. and Tyco Fire Products L.P.
The bond, which was on the March 1 City Council agenda under Communications from the Mayor, was referred to the Finance Committee with no discussion. It was put on an amended agenda for the next meeting, rescheduled to Thursday, March 8 at 6:30 p.m. due to the snowstorm. Other items on the Finance Committee agenda are transfers within the Water and Wastewater Division for construction and equipment. Department of Public Works Director David Billips and Board of Health Director Joseph Rouse are also expected to attend the meeting to review the city’s trash services.
The $13 million bond is also on the agenda for the Legislative and Ordinance Committee, scheduled for Tuesday, March 13 at 6 p.m.
