KEEP OUR TOWNS BLUE!
Protect our watershed's water resources!

Below is a sample letter to the Lt. Governor Kerry Healey and Commissioner Robert Golledge.  Click here to download a copy of the letter as a Microsoft Word document. 

To email Commissioner Golledge, click here: Robert.Golledge@state.ma.us

To email Lt. Governor Healey, click here. 

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Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey
State House
Boston, MA 02133
FAX: 617-727-9725

Commissioner Robert Golledge
Department of Environmental Protection
One Winter Street
Boston, MA 02108
FAX: 617-574-6880

Dear Lieutenant Governor Healey and Commissioner Golledge,

I am writing in opposition to proposed changes to the Department of Environmental Protection's April 2004 Water Management Act Policy and Guidance Document ("The Policy").  The Policy is an important and overdue initiative in the Department's implementation of the Water Management Act (WMA)  The WMA Program, which is required to achieve a "balance among competing water withdrawals and uses, as well as preservation of the water resource itself," has failed to achieve these purposes, resulting in severe damage to the environment.   

Particularly, I have three concerns with the proposed changes.  At a minimum, the Department should attempt to rectify the follow items:

• I support tying outdoor watering restrictions to low streamflows in the Charles because this is will help to protect fish and habitat.  If the Department decides to allow two-day a week lawn watering regardless of low streamflows, it should at least establish a low streamflow cutoff when lawn watering can only be done with hand-held hoses.
• Basins that are unassessed for stress should not be lumped in with low stress basins, which have lower conservation requirements.  Instead, they should be presumed to be medium stress.  Just because they are unassessed does not mean these basins are not stressed already.
• Because Towns have two calendar years to achieve the conservation standards for residential use and leaky pipes, I do not support an enforcement margin that gives towns an additional three years before they actually have to meet these standards.  Our rivers and streams can't afford to wait five years for protection.  The enforcement margin will end up being a shield from enforcement.

I ask you to protect our state's environmental resources by making changes to the WMA Policy and Guidance that truly consider the needs of Massachusetts' stressed rivers in addition to human consumption needs.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of these comments. 

Sincerely,

Advocacy Resources

Talking points and phone numbers

Sample Letter to Lt. Governor Kerry Healey and DEP Commissioner Robert Golledge

Water Resources and the Charles River: A Fact Sheet

Media coverage