On Water Tank Special Town Meeting - March 12
After sponsoring the successful petition campaign in January to call a special town meeting on just the water tank issue, we have been sending emails the last few weeks with updates on the issues and the progress of the Select Board’s efforts to raise outstanding issues and to answer resident questions about the tank project. However, some of you receiving this are new to our list, as supporters have given us addresses of those they think might be interested. So a brief summary.
Why Does the Tank Issue Matter?
The tank issue matters because our amount of water storage is not adequate to assure we can fight fires during very dry periods in the summer, because the tanks are at the end of their service lives with maintenance costs rising, and significant areas of town do not have adequate water pressure for resident use or firefighting. It’ll cost the town a large amount to fix this situation and related pipe improvements, in the range of $43 million coming out of our Water Enterprise Fun and our water rates (not town taxes). It’s an important decision that was not approved at the December town meeting, in our opinion, in part because of lack of public understanding of the issue as well as misinformation being disseminated. This leaves us vulnerable to fires in the summers, and residents at higher elevations with inadequate water pressure.
We think it’s a problem to have key town decisions made without solid information in everyone’s hands, given we don’t have a newspaper any more and town government doesn’t have a way to push information out to everyone (a PR firm might have helped get the word out better). We are trying to help provide that missing source of information, at least until the Weston Observer newspaper (https://westonobserver.org/) is up and running. Our first focus is on the water tank issue in preparation for the March 12 town meeting. Then the May annual town meeting will include our annual budget and other important issues needing clarity like the MBTA 3a multifamily zoning issue. We assume more issues will follow.
The news in this newsletter issue mostly covers the February 12 Select Board’s Water Tank Working Group meeting, mainly describing how it would be financed. While apparently it was always the plan, the financing strategy was new and surprising to us given the many rumors floating around and our apparent lack of knowledge. The headline for that meeting is below.
New Water Tanks Won’t Cost Taxpayers
Third Water Tank Working Group Meeting Outlines Finances
The big takeaway from the Wednesday February 12th meeting of the working group is that nearly all the costs of the project will be sourced from the Water System Enterprise Fund, a separate fund that receives water rate revenue and finances all water operations. Select Board Chairman, Tom Palmer, outlined in detail how the replacement project would be funded showing projected revenue from water rate charges and borrowing payments using both state subsidized rates (State Revolving Fund (SRF) for water projects at 2.4%) or at market rates for municipal debt if Weston’s application to the SRF isn’t accepted . Both scenarios showed that nearly all costs could be covered either through use of existing rates and drawing on the Water Enterprise Fund, or, in the case of of market rate debt, with a water rate increase of 1-2% over the 30 year term of the anticipated borrowing. No increase in town taxes will result from this project. The detailed analysis can be found on the town’s website at:
A video of this Feb 12 meeting covering mostly finances is at: https://cloud.castus.tv/vod/weston/video/67ace45617f4490008e9615f?page=HOME
The January 29 meeting video is at: https://cloud.castus.tv/vod/weston/video/679a720cfaf2120008371eb5?page=HOME This covered how they would proceed and discussed a number of resident questions.
The February 5th meeting video covering the design of the tanks (how high and some site issues) is at: https://cloud.castus.tv/vod/weston/video/67a3c2521a72c40008c96280?page=HOME
Resident Questions Are Answered
Several residents asked questions about whether the tanks needed to be as high as the preliminary design suggests (40 feet taller), and also about the site selections. The Wright-Pierce engineering firm working with the town on this project has answered questions from Tricia Liu, Frank Caine, Bill Rousseau, Lorraine Alexander and the Weston Board of Health in writing, and they are posted on the town’s website at:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CmotMCV3pdT8hkCwnIp_0WPl55lDkLcg
If you have any questions, send them to the Town Manager, Leon Gaumond at: gaumond.l@westonma.gov. Leon will submit them to the Select Board Water Tank Working Group and the engineering firm for a response.
THIS IS YOUR CHANCE FOR ANSWERS. DON’T POP UP NEW QUESTIONS IN OR JUST BEFORE TOWN MEETING!!! That’s not an honest effort at answers, just an effort at confusing the issue, in our humble opinion.
HOWEVER, in order to not ask questions that have been repeatedly asked and answered, PLEASE check out the huge amount of information the project has generated already. It’s a bit hard to sort through it all, but key sections are the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the main page https://www.westonma.gov/1828/Water-Tank-Replacement-Project
One very useful document that covers a lot of the design and site questions is at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-qhNI5-G7UUmXvsFLFvCZ9gAo7E20KX4 under the name of “Final Tank Site Alteratives Analysis”, in particular pages 10-15.
And check out the Project Document Center document repository FAQ’s at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1y9sX16rdFoOVhIX-AQ7Te5RbZlY1TElQ
A lot is there, probably anything you might want. But we find it’s hard to find things if you have a specific question. Some professional PR help might make it easier to use.
Where Are We On the 3 Special Town Meeting Articles?
There are three articles, and they seem solid in our opinion, though there are still a few people with questions and some not happy with the sites. The project is essentially at a stand still right now, with the whole town inadequately protected with water volumes and pressure to fight fires reliably, be confident aging tanks won’t cause problems, or supply adequate pressure to many residents because the tanks are not high enough. The designers can’t work further until the town approves the possible locations, the upper limit to the height of the tanks, and approves the project’s ability to borrow money for the project when the time comes to do so.
Height of the tanks – Amend Zoning By-laws – Municipal Utility Structure Standards
- One article asks for a zoning change to allow the new tanks to be built up to 40 feet higher. It doesn’t decide the height, that will be firmly decided during the detailed design phases which can only start after these articles are passed. The preliminary design suggested the system would likely need the extra 40 ft to work properly to meet fire fighting needs and pressure standards, but current zoning bylaws don’t allow structures in town to reach that height, so a bylaw change is needed to allow up to that height in the final design, if final design confirms the need.
Land Swap – Authorize Land Exchange for Water Tanks Project and Filing of Article 97 Legislation
- One article requests approval for a land swap. The current tanks are surrounded by conservation land, and the town needs to use some of that land for the new tanks since the new tanks need to be built while the old ones continue to work. Conservation land is controlled by state law and that law requires the town to set aside new equally valuable and usable land into conservation status if it is to be allowed by the state to take some land out of conservations status to build the new tanks. The plan is to leave the old sites open to public use, just as with the conservation land, but not under the control of the state.
Financing – Appropriate For Water Tank Improvements
- The final article authorizes the town to borrow up to a set amount when the project needs to spend the money. Current estimates are around $43 million. Without that authorization some planning expenses can’t be funded and bids from contractors can’t be acquired to fix the final cost of the project (firms won’t bother to bid if a project has no funding approval). This borrowing will be repaid mainly out of the water rates and the town’s Water Enterprise Fund, a fund receiving water revenue and which includes a set aside for capital water projects like this. No tax increases will result from this project, so the project will not compete with other possible projects like firehouses or schools for funding out of tax revenues.
We think all three articles are appropriate and worthy of passage. The Land Swap article does fix the site selection to define the town’s request the necessary state land swap approval, but the height bylaw and the financing authority articles make it possible to continue the planning process, with the final design to be fixed during later design phases (all of which will be public since they need approval by the select board in public sessions). We need approval of the financing article to attract cost bids to finalize the borrowing amounts, and to apply for low interest rates from the state’s water revolving fund. The final exact borrowing figure will be set after final design and bids, and drawing down funds are projected in detail, with current estimates, in the financial spreadsheet made available at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I0zyTkHhg9UZZurXYKF4nPiPygAU8sKd/edit?gid=1029717948#gid=1029717948.
We’ve got a few more weeks to get answers to all our questions, as well as to influence the final articles we will consider at the Special Town Meeting. Please stay tuned for honest information about the decision.
See you March 12 at the high school to vote on this issue. Let’s not let the adequacy of our water supply continue to be a risk for the town.