The City Council and Finance Committee are being asked to approve another $13 Million Dollar Bond for Water Mitigation and infrastructure purposes, on top of the $5 Million we approved in 2017. Last year we were told a Water Filtration plant for Wells 7 and 8 would cost $1.6 Million, it is understandable if the Water Department made an error in their estimate, due to this contamination issue being so new to Westfield and to many communities across the nation. The Finance Committee cannot make decisions solely on the claim that “costs increased”, which is what we were told. Finance was provided no supporting documentation, no project plan, and no information regarding the processes the city is taking to reclaim our costs from the Federal Government. All that we received was a five line spreadsheet of the projects Water Department wanted to do with the $18 Million in bond funds.
The Finance Committee’s job is to watch the budget, and without sufficient information, we are not able to make sound judgments on these important issues. We have asked repeatedly for information related to these projects and were rebuffed until last evening, March 27th. I want to personally thank the Mayor and department heads for coming before the City Council and Public last night to answer some questions. I have many more which I was unable to ask due to time constraints, but I will be following up with department heads in the coming days and weeks. I will keep my constituents and the public apprised of the level of cooperation that I encounter going forward.
I have been in Contact with Randy Chambers – Chief of Environmental Law for the Office of the Chief Counsel of the National Guard Bureau. He advises that I am the first and only person in Westfield government to have ever contacted him or the National Guard Bureau. That is an embarrassment, that I am the only City Official to have ever reached out to the National Guard Bureau, especially in that we are this far into the process, about 3 years after Wells 7 and 8 were taken offline.
Why has the city law department not been in constant contact with NGB throughout this process?
Mr. Chambers at National Guard Bureau advises that the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act is the process the Federal Government traditionally uses in cases of environmental contamination. He has stated that this process is run out of Washington, not at the Barnes ANG Base, and therefore the Base Commander would have limited information. Due Diligence dictates that this should have been one of the very first contacts the City of Westfield made regarding the pollution of our groundwater.
Staying the Course only makes sense if you’re headed in a sensible direction. We need to work in Common Sense and Facts. We should not be rushing through a process that ends up adding Insult to Injury and forces our residents who have been poisoned to pay for the water contamination clean-up costs, due to the negligence of the U.S. Airforce and the Barnes ANG Base.
Getting Clean Water to our Residents is the Priority. Which is why several of us on the Council find it difficult to believe the temporary filtration system for Well 2 was not even ordered until February 2018. We knew the PFOA and PFOS chemicals were already in Wells 1 and 2. Just because they were not over the Lifetime Health Advisory revised by the EPA in 2016, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have acted sooner to ensure a proper water supply was available to our residents.
The accusation of some of my colleagues, that because some of us on the Council are working for Fiscal Accountability, it means that we want our residents, friends, and family to drink poisoned water is a False Dichotomy, and a Contemptible Allegation. To those Councilors and former Councilors who think it is acceptable to rubberstamp everything that passes in front of them with no questions: Why do you think it is acceptable to make our citizens who have been poisoned by the US Airforce, to be forced to pay to clean-up after the mess the US Airforce has created?
There is already a process in place to solve this problem with the Federal Government. It’s called CERCLA. To allow that process to play out, some of us on the Council have suggested some of the following steps.
? Step 1: Install a Temporary Filtration Unit on Well 2. That way we would have two active Wells available to Northside residents. Determine if drilling a new well outside of the contamination zone is cost effective, and if it will help the capacity situation. If it is determined to be cost feasible, and will help capacity, then drill the well under the MassDEP’s fast track authority for emergencies.
? Step 2: Engage our Federal Officials, the US Airforce and ANG to obtain an Environmental Services Agreement or Memorandum of Understanding for an Environmental Restoration Project under the Defense Environmental Restoration Program. Of note, the CERCLA process allows for Interim Remedial Actions, which include providing alternative sources of water to residents, specifically bottled water and the construction of filtration systems on municipal wells by the Federal Government. It also is of note that this can happen at anytime in the CERCLA process, it does not require the 6 step process outlined by the Mayor to be completed prior to such an action. What it does require is political and public pressure on the proper officials.
? Step 3: Evaluate progress at the 6 month and 1 year marks, and determine our next steps based on that progress. If there is no movement from the Federal Government, then at that time determine how to pay for permanent filtration systems on all Northside wells. We are not giving the process the proper time to move forward. That’s just my opinion, but I am more informed about this process than many of my colleagues. (Be aware Wells 7 and 8 will continue to be offline for at least the next year and a half until the proposed permanent filtration systems are built).
It appears, that based on documents and the process (which I had to find myself), that Westfield is farming out responsibility for the government contacts related to possible mitigation to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and placing the burden for the costs on the residents who have been slowly poisoned over many years. People are struggling to get by, and if we are adding $200 to $300 onto their yearly water bills, in addition to likely property tax hikes due to our ever-increasing spending, it is going to force many people out of their homes, and out of our city. This is particularly true for our seniors that live on fixed incomes, and for the many middle and working-class families living paycheck to paycheck. It’s easy to say, “well it’s just a few cents a day on their water bill”, the problem lays in the fact that the city has been adding a few dollars and cents everyday to their cost of living in Westfield for many years and it adds up.
In the 7 years, from 2010 to 2017, the average household income in Westfield has increased just 13.5%. The average Residential Property Tax has increased over 32%! That is almost a 20% difference between how much more the average family is making versus how much more Westfield is taxing them. And that is just in 7 years. People can’t keep up, they are struggling, and they need help.
As to the trust factor, that again is based on transparency. Rebuilding Trust is necessary, and not just between City and Citizens, but also between the branches of our municipal government. I don’t see a lot of trust between either group, and from the stand point of sitting on the City Council, information is not flowing to us in a proper and official manner. How do we fix this?
The Answer is Transparency. Sharing Everything – That means sharing all of the information the City has regarding issues before the Council. Also, ensuring the Mayor and Councilors are available to the Public to answer any and all questions. (Particularly in relation to the important groundwater contamination issue).
And to Councilor Brent Bean, if you had wanted to re-vote on the Water Bond at the last Council meeting on March 15th, you could have made the motion to do so for the next Council meeting on April 5th, but you refused. If anyone wishes to verify this, I would advise you go back and watch the tape of the end of that debate. Council President Beltrandi asked Councilor Bean to make the motion to re-vote on the Water Bond, but Councilor Bean refused. Then he claimed those of us that voted against a huge bond with no supporting information provided, were “playing games with people’s health.” In reality he was just pulling a political stunt to try to make the Finance Committee look heartless and bad for attempting to do our job and do our due diligence prior to piling an additional financial burden onto our citizens. Brent we can disagree on process, but we cannot disagree on facts. There is no reason to be uncordial to each other, or to make slanderous accusations just because we disagree.
Westfield needs an Environmental Services Agreement with the Federal Government prior to spending major funding on mitigation, as the CERCLA process does not allow repayment for past costs prior to an agreement. I would ask you not to just take my word for it, but heed the advice of the Water and Sanitation District manager for Widefield, Colorado (another community dealing with PFOA/PFOS water contamination from an airbase). In his own words: “Reach an environmental services agreement to pay for future contamination-related costs.” “If we had one of those in place from the get-go, we would have been able to get some money from them.” “It’s going to be the quickest path to getting funds from the Air Force.”
Please contact our Federal Officials and ask them to work to get an Environmental Services Agreement between Westfield and the Air National Guard, and to push the ANG for an Interim Remedial Action to provide bottled water and to install Filtration Systems on our Municipal Wells.
Senator Elizabeth Warren: (202) 224-4543
Senator Edward Markey: (617) 565-8519
Congressman Richard Neal: (202) 225-5601
Thank You,
Ward 3 City Councilor
Andrew K. Surprise
