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Date: 10/25/2022
SOUTHAMPTON – James Walunas, Water Commissioner, didn’t realize he was asking for the moon. He submitted a request for $1.62 million to replace a significant piece of the town’s water infrastructure.
“That’s to pay for the whole thing,” Walunas said. “We put in the maximum request.”
Walunas submitted the application for American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) funds granted to the town by the federal government. The town has about $600,000 remaining from the program, according to Christine Fowles, Select Board chair. The money, distributed to help communities recover from the coronavirus pandemic, comes with few restrictions in how it can be spent.
The Water Department is working to submit bid documents for the first of three phases of the water main project, which could be out to interested parties by the end of the year. The first phase will replace mains from Fomer Road to Clark Street. Construction could start in spring of 2023, with completion in the summer or spring of 2024.
The second phase of the project will replace water mains from Clark Street to East Street. Progress on that phase was not detailed in the discussion. The third phase will install new water mains from East Street to Palmer Meadow Road.
The projected cost for phase one will total $604,000. The Water Department was previously budgeted $180,000 for other related work and calculated $424,000 in further grant money. Walunas was hoping to retain $265,000 the department collected through water use and other revenue, but the ARPA money alone isn’t sufficient. Spending those water department proceeds will still leave $159,000 in additional funding necessary for the first phase. That figure appealed to board members, who see the ARPA monies as offering an extraordinary opportunity.
“This is a pretty amazing position to be in, to be given $1.8 million without having to go to Town Meeting,” Board member Maureen Groden commented. $1.8 million was the entire amount received by the town from the coronavirus pandemic era program.
Groden wasn’t certain a water project would get funding at Town Meeting. Water Commissioner Joe Slattery, however, offered a reassuring description of the well field.
“The well is about 140 [feet] deep and there’s about 120 feet [there] of the best clay you ever saw for making bricks,” Slattery said. “You could dump a truckload of home heating oil on top of that well, sealed right in that well area, and it would never get to” the water.
Walunas told the board the typical winter water usage is 260,000 gallons daily, with average townwide use at 360,000 gallons, or about 50 gallons per person per day. The department receives $88,000 electricity bills, but is running the pump less than in prior decades after the town installed a pumping station to import water from Easthampton.
“We were trying to pump 900,000 gallons out of that well” per day, Walunas said. “We can bring it in anytime now, and it makes it a much more flexible system.”
The system includes a 700,000 gallon storage tank, to be drawn from during peaks in demand. About 4,800 people drink public water. Between 75 and 80 percent of residents use it, with 80 percent using the minimum and about 20 percent using more to refresh lawns and fill swimming pools.
Fowles asked if water limits will constrict future expansion of the town. The commissioners couldn’t say. They pointed to other options for importing water. A connection exists with Northampton. Holyoke may be another seller, though tapping those sources will probably not be necessary any time soon.
Easthampton has plenty of excess water capacity.
“I think we bought 12 million gallons,” Walunas said. “It’s going to take us four or five years to see what the average is going to be.”
Groden recalled an item on a recent Town Meeting warrant to pay a $22,000 water bill and bemoaned the expense. Walunas earlier described how the water rate was based on water costs and just enough more to keep the system running. As he admitted, buying water does not help pay for Southampton’s overhead.
“We can pay for it,” Walunas said, referring to Easthampton water, “but we don’t gain any money off of it to pay for system improvements. Our rates are set up so that we slowly gain money, so that we can borrow money to improve the system. When we buy water from them it’s not happening. It’s just running through the system. We’re getting enough money to pay for it, but we’re not making anything off of it. I don’t want to say profit, but it’s basically profit that takes care of the system.”
Walunas said 91 percent of residential water use comes from the town’s well, with 9 percent from Easthampton.