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Date: 10/8/2021
HOLYOKE – A group of volunteers are working to preserve a local reservoir and help people engage with nature.
Sue Ellen Panitch, who serves as the chairman of the Whiting Street Reservoir Committee, was a member of the Conservation Commission for more than 40 years. She said it was this passion for conservation that led her to volunteer for the Whiting Street Reservoir Committee, as “for many, many years people in Holyoke have talked about the best possible use of the Whiting Street Reservoir property.”
Panitch explained the city “owns several reservoirs,” two of which are the Ashley Reservoir and the Whiting Street Reservoir. “The founding fathers put together a superb reservoir system. Holyoke is one of the rare communities in the U.S. that has sufficient water with no serious problems. We have the best water system in Massachusetts and there are four reservoirs,” she said.
She said the reservoir, which can be accessed “from Route 141 or the Mount Tom Access Road” and is located in the northwest end of Holyoke. Much like the other reservoirs in the city, Panitch said the Whiting Street Reservoir is open only to passive recreation and no pets were allowed. Passive recreation, she said, included non-motorized bikes, walking, running and hiking.
Over the years there has been a lot of discussion about the property, which is managed by a board of trustees, but none of it has come to fruition. “Lots of thoughts have been promulgated and nothing ever happens, which I think is appropriate. A year or so ago, a little over a year, Michael Sullivan, who is running for mayor, and Dave Bartley, put out an ordinance setting up the study committee,” she explained.
Panitch said there were a total of nine seats on the board, eight of which were filled and “various boards in the city and the mayor’s office all had a chance to put someone on the committee.” She explained that up until now they “have been basically studying the property from every angle that we could think of.”
“We checked every law that governed the use of reservoirs, locally and in the state and federally. We've been talking to neighbors about their plans for their land and how it might affect the reservoir,,” she said. “We talked to everyone we could think of, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, they own property along the ridge, the trustees reservation they also own property [and] the U.S. Department of Conservation and Recreation.”
She said in addition, the committee also talked to private landowners such as the Wycoff Country Club. This, she explained, was to try “to find out what their future plans were” and what their “thoughts were in relation to the reservoir.”
Additionally, she said there are several species of animals and plants that the committee felt needed to be protected. “The most interesting thing to me is as a former 40-year long member of the Conservation Commission, is that the Mount Tom area has an enormous number of rare and endangered species – more than anywhere else in the state except Cape Cod,” she said. “Everything that is done up there, every consideration, we have to take the consideration of species both flora and fauna. That is the primary concern, along with water. Natural resources are very, very precious.”
This effort, she said, was continued during an open public meeting at City Hall on Oct. 7. “We’re trying to see what people are interested in and if there are any additional things that can be done recreationally that will not in any way impinge on keeping the water in its best possible condition and not doing anything that will harm any of the rare or endangered species,” she said.
Everything, within the existing limitations laid out such as passive recreation and no pets, would be taken into consideration. “We want to listen to everyone’s ideas,” she said. After the public hearing is conducted and the committee has heard everyone’s ideas, she said they will write a study to present to the city.
So far, she said they’d found “some significant issues” from abutters. However, she said the committee was hopeful that with possible federal funding “maybe some of those things can be addressed.”
“We will discuss them in the report,” she said. “Our promise to ourselves, and we hope we can keep it, is the end of the year the study will be written and presented. We’d like to get it done sooner, and hopefully we will.”
She said despite the meeting taking place on Oct. 7, if comments were “specific and brief” they’d be willing to accept writing comments and suggestions from the public. “The most important thing is we do want public input, we do want to know what the public feels,” she said.
She said written comments can be addressed to the attention of Jeffry Anderson-Burgos in City Hall at 536 Dwight St. Holyoke, MA 01040.
The matter, she said, was important. “This committee feels strongly about what we’re doing. It involves a very, very important resource. We have to get it done and turned in as carefully and completely as we can,” she said.
Panitch said once the study was completed, the committee would disband. “Then we have to break ourselves apart and say goodbye, what the best committees should do. Our responsibility is to get our job done and hear what everybody thinks before we finalize anything,” she said.