WESTFIELD – The Water Commission voted Tuesday night to initiate an eminent domain acquisition of more than 90 acres of land in Granville to protect the Granville Reservoir watershed. The board voted 3-0 to request that Mayor Daniel M. Knapik initiate the land taking through the City Council.
Water Resource Department Engineer Charles Darling said the 91.8 acres of land was formerly an apple orchard and that the city has a state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs grant to purchase the property know as the Olsen orchard.
The Olsen property has an assessed value of $500,000 with the EOEA grant funding half of that amount. The property is located along Old Westfield Road.
“We have a grant, but it has a very tight timeline,” Darling said. “We have to demolish the buildings and the site cleanup has to be completed by the end of 2015 to qualify for the grant.
“The contamination is pesticides used on the old apple orchard,” Darling said. “There is a high urgency to get this cleaned up.”
Water Resource Superintendent Dave Billips said the property contains the head watershed of a brook that feeds the reservoir.
“It has been identified as contaminated property,” Billips said. “The feeder stream (for Granville Reservoir) begins on this property.”
Billips said the cost of the environmental remediation will be deducted from the assessed value of the property. Tighe & Bond performed the environmental assessment and developed the cost estimate for the remediation.
Darling said the grant is an annual EOEA program intended to acquire land to further protect drinking water supplies.
“We have had discussions with the land owner about this purchase, but then he backed out because he feels he can get more for the land from another party,” Darling said.
Billips said the concern is that any development on the land will destabilize the soil and could lead to an increase in the pesticides being carried into the feeder brook.
“So this has urgency because of the contamination,” Commission Chairman Ron Cole asked prior to the board’s vote to take the property through eminent domain.
“There is a high urgency to get this cleaned up to protect the Granville Reservoir water quality,” Darling said. “Under state law the City of Westfield can acquire land in Granville for water source protection.”
