by Jim Kinney, originally posted on September 24, 2016

 

WESTFIELD — The city may need to build one to two new water treatment plants at a cost of up to $2 million each to filter contaminants found in three drinking water wells, according to the city’s public works director.

And a convergence of issues — including contamination from the chemicals PFOA and PFOS, tighter federal standards regarding the presence of those chemicals in drinking water and persistent drought conditions in the region — has put Westfield in want of more water.

The city announced a total and immediate ban on outdoor water use Sept. 15, and David Billips, director of public works for the city of Westfield, expects that ban to stay in place for some time.

“Water use typically drops in October. We’ll see,” he said.

Billips said this week he is in talks with a neighboring municipality about interconnecting another supply with Westfield’s system to help ease the shortage.

Westfield already connects its water system with Springfield. But that city’s water system has shortages of its own, and Westfield needs to boost supply to the city’s north end.

Billips said the city and the engineering company Tighe & Bond are working on ways to connect Westfield’s water system to Holyoke’s in order to meet demand.

As for a Granville reservoir that supplies half the city’s water, that’s up to the weather, Billips said.

“Filling a reservoir is a lot more complicated than just telling people to stop watering their lawns,” he said.

But having more water in the reservoir doesn’t help the city’s problem with Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS). The chemicals are common industrial contaminants and were used, among other things, in firefighting foam used at airports, considered the likely culprit in Westfield’s case.

Billips said the federal government recently tightened restrictions on PFOA levels in drinking water, no longer allowing even trace amounts. PFOA contamination has been an issue in municipal water supplies as of late, most notably in the system of Hoosick Falls, N.Y. near Albany.

Westfield wells 7 and 8, located behind East Mountain Country Club near Barnes Regional Airport, were taken offline in May because of  both PFOA or PFOS, contamination. Since then, well 2 on Holyoke Road subsequently tested positive and was also shut down.

Now, Billips fears the contamination may move to well 1 on Union Street, which is still serving residents and businesses. Drawing heavily from well 1 sucks water — and contamination — toward the well, Billips said.

But the chemicals can’t go much further than well 1 because the aquifer flows south, he said. That means the aquifer that feeds those wells — and has the contamination — can’t carry the contamination north to the uncontaminated wells 5 and 6 on Northwest Road.

As of now, the city only has disinfection equipment — not filters capable of removing chemicals — at many of its wells.

The city has four other wells. Wells 3 and 4 are located on Shaker road in the southern end of town. They have a treatment plant because of contamination discovered in the 1980s and 1990s.

Wells 5 and 6  on Northwest Road are not contaminated and don’t need a filtration plant. But those wells are low-yield, Billips said, meaning they produce little water and cannot contribute to solving the city’s overall water supply problem.

The situation will likely require one or two new treatment plants to remove the PFOA from well water. Each facility would cost at least $1 to $2 million, Billips said. The cost would depend on the plants’ size and design. Treatment would involve passing the water through a silo of activated charcoal to remove the chemical.

“We might even have to bring in temporary treatment plants,” he said.

He won’t know more until next week, but Calgon, the water-treatment company, has trailer-mounted filtration equipment it could provide to the city as a short-term fix until a permanent treatment plant or plants can be built.

It would take some time to set up a temporary plant, but it would be doable.

“We would have to run some pipes and we would have to test it,” he said. “But we have people here on staff who have done it before.”

Water ban working

As of this week, the region has received only about 23.6 inches of combined precipitation since Jan. 1, 2016. That is nine inches less than normal, which is defined as a 30-year average, according to the National Weather Service at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

Rain this late in the year won’t even make that much of an impact on the Granville reservoir. There is too much vegetation and the ground is too dry, and even heavy rains won’t send torrents of water into the reservoir.

“It pains me as director of public works in charge of snow removal, but we need a lot of snow this winter,” Billips said. “There are a number of streams that feed the reservoir. A good amount of snow would really help to recharge that reservoir. It needs a good recharge over the winter.”

The physical topography of Westfield also works against an easy solution, Billips said.

The city needs water from its existing wells on the north side of town because that area is at a higher elevation than the rest of the city. It’s hard to get water from the reservoir or from wells on Shaker Road up the hill to those neighborhoods.

“You just can’t get enough water over there,” he said.

Which is why the city needs to get the three north-side wells back online with filtration or to draw water from a neighboring municipality.

As for now, the outdoor water ban is working, Billips said.

Before the ban, well 1 was averaging a flow of 1.4 million gallons a day. One day after announcing the ban, demand dropped to 1.2 million gallons a day. On the second day after the ban, demand at the well fell to 600,000 gallons a day.

That decline shows, Billips said, just how much of Westfield’s pre-ban water demand was fueled by outside uses such as lawn watering.

As part of the ban, Billips also ended all outside water use by the city. Park fountains were shut down, and the city stopped watering the parks and school fields.

He said most residents are cooperating with the bans and no longer using water outdoors at their homes. City Public works employees and police have, when they notice someone in violation, spoken with the resident or left a note explaining the ban.

“Some homes and businesses have sprinklers set up to go on and off automatically on timers,” he said. “They may not know about the ban, or know that the sprinkler is turning on overnight. But when we talk with homeowners or businesses they cooperate.”

So far, no fines have been issued. Billips wants everyone to receive a warning before police take that step. The fines are $25 for the first citation and $50 for the second and each additional citation. Each day on which a violation occurs constitutes a separate violation.

Billips said he has not noticed a spike in water usage with the return of of students to Westfield State University, the city’s largest water user.

In Amherst, there were concerns hat the return of students to the University of Massachusetts and to Amherst and Hampshire colleges for the fall semester would undo much of the conservation gains water bans brought to the town.

The schools all implemented conservation measures and brought the conservation message to residence halls during move-in. For example, students were asked to take shorter showers.

Those warnings about water use were not part of the move-in experience this fall at Westfield State University, said spokeswoman Tricia M. Oliver.

But Westfield State is sending vehicles out to be washed at a commercial car wash that recycles water instead of washing them on site. And, long-term, the school replaces nozzles and faucets with low-flow models as it renovates bathrooms and kitchens, and new equipment such as floor cleaners use less water than the equipment they replace. Floors in the new science building also need less water to maintain.

in response to the city outdoor water use ban, Westfield State has stopped all outdoor watering of its lawns and athletic fields, Oliver said. The lone exception is that the university is watering the new grass landscaping around its recently completed Science and Innovation Center building.

Billips said Friday even a limited amount of watering is in violation, and that he would notify Westfield State of that fact.

While construction watering is not an exception to the ban, exceptions include watering that meets the core function of a business — such as irrigation by golf courses to maintain tees, greens and fairways — and irrigation by plant nurseries to maintain stock.