CRWA in the News

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Medfield Press

How much water do Medfield residents use every day, one wonders.

An accurate number is vital.

If it is at 115 gallons per day, as the Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA) claims, the town has a challenge.

On the other hand it could be 90 per day average quoted by Selectman Ann Thompson.

That difference is - in terms of water use - huge.

So Medfield is resisting the Department of Environmental Projection (DEP) order, fighting it in the legislation.

CHWA points to the Ipswich River, where the bed ran dry after the surrounding towns sucked it dry.

Can't leave the Charles River in that sort of condition.

So the CRWA and the DEP got together and lobbied the new policy - 65 gallons per day per person - into being.

Only problem was the executive groups and the legislature never heard from the people along the shore.

"We are livid, absolutely livid," said Medfield selectman Ann Thompson.

The new limits, given to town governments by the state DEP at an April 27 meeting in Franklin, would restrict Medfield and surrounding towns to 65 gallons per person, per day. At least 10 towns attended the meeting, hosted by the state DEP and the Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA), including Millis, Walpole, Dover and Westwood.

Medfield Town Administrator Mike Sullivan drafted a letter of complaint to Rep. Richard Ross this week, and Rep. Lida Harkins has also asked the DEP to hold off on issuing the limits. The DEP said they are willing to factor local concerns into their mandates, but that water-use levels show unequivocally that the basin needs greater limits.

According to Margaret VanDeusen, deputy director of the CRWA, measurements for Medfield show they use more than 100 gallons of water per person every day, and that their use has spiked in recent years.

"Medfield has had a really disturbing upward trend in their residential water use. They withdrew 85 gallons per person every day in 1988, and now it's 115 gallons per person per day. It's time to get these numbers under control," she said.

Almost all of Medfield uses municipal water drawn from the Charles and Neponset Rivers, with very few homes using private wells.

Thompson said she hopes the DEP will reverse its order, and increase the levels - or discard them altogether.

"We'll be meeting again with area towns to try and stand together. They say we're a medium-stress basin and have to worry about the wildlife and frogs, and they don't seem to care about the people," she said. "I think they've got to redo their figurings. I'd love to see them admit they were wrong."

Making a river guru look foolish is not at all the objective.

What the surrounding towns need are some real, live, pertinent and some documentation, along with some real objective judges.

Then they need some agreed-on limits.

This is not a willpower contest, this is a matter of whether Medfield and the other bordering towns have any say at all in what happens.

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