WESTFIELD – The Finance Committee voted 3-0 Thursday night to recommend approval by the full City Council at its June 6 session of a $3.75 million bond to make repairs at the city’s Granville Reservoir.
The committee members discussed the bond request with Water Resource Superintendent Dave Billips, and the work that would be financed through the bond at the reservoir, which was damaged during Tropical Storm Irene.
That storm dumped so much rain in such a short period that it caused the reservoir to overflow into the dam spillway, filling that concrete structure to capacity and eventually washing away soil behind the concrete that supported the spillway wall, which eventually collapsed.
The overflow torrent than washed away a hillside and nearly exposed the raw-water transmission line, which carries reservoir water to the city’s primary treatment plan in Southwick. If that line had been damaged, the city would have lost half of its water supply.
Billips said that the raw-water line is being upgraded, which required the department to take the Granville Reservoir off line, which also provides the opportunity to replace the spillway and to make other upgrades to the earthen dam of the reservoir built in 1929.
At-large Councilor John J. Beltrandi III said that the city has not invested financial assets in that reservoir and that the facility has never been substantially improved or upgraded since the original dam construction.
“Those facilities have to be repaired, upgraded, and then maintained,” Beltrandi said.
The Finance Committee members also commented that the city needs the reservoir improvement bond to preserve capacity in the municipal budget for debt.
At-large Councilor David A. Flaherty did question the revenue impact of taking the reservoir off line this summer, which required the Water Commission to impose an outdoor-use water ban. Residents will be limited in their outdoor water use because of that ban intended to conserve the city’s drinking water supply, which will depend entirely on wells while the reservoir if off line.
“If your revenue drops (substantially) how will you deal with your budget next year?” Flaherty asked Billips.
State Law restricts the department’s annual budget to the level of the prior year’s revenue. The department’s revenue is directly related to summer weather. Revenue drops during wet summers and climbs during dry summers, meaning that the budget rides a revenue roller coaster.
Billips said that the city will receive an $800,000 reimbursement for the Irene related spillway damage from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Massachusetts Emergency Management agency after the replacement work is complete.
