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Date: 11/27/2023
SPRINGFIELD — The City Council Health and Human Services Subcommittee hosted a meeting on Nov. 16 to discuss water quality with the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission.
Executive Director Joshua Schimmel shared that no new sampling data has taken place, as it is done quarterly.
Providing an update on the new West Parish Filters Water Treatment Plant, he said that the commission has received its 90% plans which are now under review with the Department of Environmental Protection. Schimmel explained that they must receive several permits from the DEP.
“[We’re] in the last push here to finalize the plans and the bidding package,” he said. The project is anticipated to be put out to bid in February 2024.
Schimmel continued, “We’re in the last push … Things are progressing. We’re on schedule in terms of what the design is and are feeling pretty good with where we are.”
He noted that there are still some hurdles in front of them from a regulatory review standpoint and a financing standpoint, but the planning is coming to the end.
Schimmel added that he thinks construction will begin in summer 2024, with expected completion in August 2028.
City Councilor Zaida Govan said she has heard residents’ concern about continuing to drink the water and the contaminant levels that are continuing to increase.
Schimmel said, “The levels have been pretty steady where we are, so the levels aren’t increasing. We do see some seasonal increase but we’re typically very close to what the limits are.”
He went on to say that they are “right on the borderline” of being within compliance at times throughout the course of the year.
“During this quarter in particular, there’s a fall turnover in the reservoir and we generally see increased organics at this time of year but it’s really a function of so many different variables, it’s hard to predict,” Schimmel added.
He noted that they have never been five times of what the limit is — they have always been at or what the maximum contaminant level limit would be.
In terms of the customers’ exposure, he said there is no acute risk here. Schimmel explained that the risk is over multiple decades of exposure at high levels and thinks he can say with “good certainty” that this will not be the case.
“When we finish this testament plant, the risk will be eliminated completely,” he added.
Govan asked when the department started putting chlorine in the water, to which Schimmel said they have been doing this for 100 years.
She then asked what is being done differently now that is causing the increase in the levels.
“The difference now is that there’s more organics in the water than there were before,” Schimmel said.
He said that the chlorine has been modified over decades, but it is the organics that are seeing an increase. He explained that the changes in climate have changed how organic matter is washed into the reservoirs more than ever.