WESTFIELD – The Water Commission discussed a program of providing local residents with access to 60-gallon irrigation barrels through a state contract.
Water Resource Engineer Charles Darling said the state has established a contract with a vendor to provide the rain barrels, which residents attach to downspouts to collect storm water, at a fixed cost to residents.
Darling said the department will advertise the information about the vendor and that residents interested in purchasing the barrels will deal directly with the vendor. The residents will pay the vendor for one or more barrels which will be delivered directly to the resident’s home.
“This is a state award, so the price is set at $69 dollars,” Darling said. “The barrels have two spigots, a higher one for filling watering cans and a lower one for hose attachments.”
Darling said the department anticipates imposing “water restrictions this summer when the treatment plant is taken offline for the raw water main and dam repair projects at the Granville Reservoir, which supplies half of the city’s water.”
Water Resource Superintendent Dave Billips, said that the city would be drawing all of its drinking water from the city’s well system, which will tax the capacity of that resource. Billips said that the city has the option to purchase water from Springfield, but that the cost of that option is significant, making conservation through a water ban program more cost efficient.
Darling said the Public Works Department has offered the rain barrels in the past under its stormwater management program and that the department’s offering would support the stormwater management program.
“Any conservation measure is also taken as credit under the (Department of Environmental Protection) stormwater management policies,” Darling said.
Billips said the department hopes to complete repairs at the Granville Reservoir, constructed in 1929, and to the raw water line, built in 1889 and which delivers reservoir water to the city’s treatment plant in Southwick, this construction season.
Tropical Storm Katrina washed out the spillway of the dam. The cost to repair that damage is estimated at 1.9 million, which the cost of repairing the wicking system of the 80-foot high earthen dam is an additional $1 million.
The cost of replacing the existing raw water main with a larger diameter pipe, using pipe bursting technology, through the Granville Gorge is estimated at $2.8 million, while upgrades to the treatment plant to increase capacity and install hydroelectric generations to power the plant is projected at $800,l000.
Officials plan to do all of that work concurrently to reduce the time the reservoir system is offline and the duration of water restrictions imposed on outdoor water use to reduce summer water demand.
