The Old Quabbin Valley

Oh. Well really mostly about how different it looks now than it did 25 years ago when I was here was just a valley here at that time. No water to speak of. We're now right over where the town of Enfield was about one hundred fifty feet down and I was an engineer on the cob and my wife and I when we were married in 1934 we set up housekeeping

here in the village of Enfield just about under way the boat is now right opposite mount rame which you see in the background. The old carbon Valley is now the Quabbin Reservoir. The massive lake was constructed in the 1930s to satisfy far away Boston's water needs. It was created by damming the swift river 65 miles west of the city and flooding the towns and villages below the twenty five hundred residents of the Enfield Dana Greenwich in Prescot had to abandon their farms their factories and their homes. Every structure in the valley was dismantled. Every grave disinterred so that nothing could contaminate the water supply. Boston's eight hundred thousand people. All that remains are the highways running to the water's edge. The mountains appearing as mere Islands and the water.

Of course three villages in the valley they knew they knew it and then field and then lose the one village up on the Hill which was crushed and dead it was just a small town. Dad committing Shaddy die dad says Yeah. Ted was gone home we were told was how bad they needed it they would all have a year or two if they didn't get our water. Well we were a world class of people and we were going to deprive anybody of the drinking water has to stay in Boston for 40 years but it is now inadequate.

A plan to divert water from the Connecticut River to supplement the Quabbin has polarized the eastern and western parts of Massachusetts. The conflict is the same as it was when the Quabbin was built. Do urban needs justify the taking of rural resources. Bostonians have searched for water since the first settlers arrived in Massachusetts. Governor John Winthrop and his followers landed in Charlestown in 16:30 and quickly discovered the land had little pure water. They moved to what is now Beacon Hill to drink from its fresh spring. By the 1900s contaminated water was causing thousands of deaths from type fever. Concerns prompted the city to extend aqueducts westward in the 1840s to tap the pure waters of Lake to chew it. This was still not enough. The city's supplies could not extinguish the great Boston fire of 1872. The Department of Public Health intensified the search for pure inland water.

Their report in 1892 recommended that all towns within a 10 mile radius of the capital abandon their own supplies and become members of one water district to be administered by the Metropolitan District Commission. The MDC. The report also suggested flooding an entire Valley in western Massachusetts to create a massive reservoir that would solve Boston's water problems for many years to come. The outcry from residents of the swift river valley was echoed by an independent commission. They were convinced that less drastic alternatives were available. The plan was stalled until 1926 when engineers hand-picked by the governor recommended its construction. The United States Supreme Court and it all opposition in 1931 when it determined that Boston's needs took priority over speculative harm to less populated areas.

They got in they surveyors and engineers to survey off the land. It was exciting for us young people. You can imagine Jay all those handsome guys and then they would tear down the houses and then they brought in a file some of the CO would pick a response to cut down all the trees. It was just like shaving a man's head. I strongly suspect that none of them had ever seen an actual assault before in his life and they came out here to treat my brother. Everybody had to be that was known to man. The first 19 crappy thing that got me the most was

record picking up on the wrong track that hit right to home. Really. The problem I think that we faced in Massachusetts pacifically going on perhaps is the distribution of water where some communities of course require a great amount of quantity of water than what is actually in their community. Therefore it has to be brought in from other communities that have a sample of the water. However the problem began that I was with a sample of the amount of water to realize that eventually they'll need it and thereby the conflict. The metropolitan area of Boston and eastern Massachusetts has most of the population in the state but the greatest part of the resources and in particular the water is out here.

So Boston is looking westward and westward for its water supply extending its aqueducts and now they've built the Quabbin Reservoir which is on a tributary of Connecticut River and so effectively they've taken some of the flow of the river. Now they proposed to put another pipe over and directly into the river. The water siphoned from the Connecticut River would augment the Quabbin in case of a shortage. In the 60s a drought drained the reservoir to 45 percent of capacity. We're such a drought to occur now. The system might not be able to quench Bostons theirs. The reservoir system can safely supply 300 million gallons a day but residents and businesses are consuming 315 million gallons a day. Towns outside the metropolitan area are demanding water from the MDC because they have lost their own supplies due to chemical contamination or because their need has surpassed their supply to augment the system the MDC has proposed diverting water from the Connecticut River and sending it to the

Quabbin using the Northfield mountain pump storage station. The pump storage station is an electricity generating plant on the banks of the Connecticut River. It operates by pumping river water through a hollow melt into a holding reservoir at the top. The water is pumped at night when demand is low using excess electricity from other power plants during the day when demand is high but water in the holding reservoir is drop 700 feet through turbines inside the mountain to generate electricity. The water is then returned to the river or crew. What I am telling you. If

that aversion is implemented a portion of the water being held in the mountain top reservoir will be sent by an underground aqueduct to the Quabbin Reservoir. Nine point eight miles to the east although no land would be flooded and no homes destroyed. The diversion is perceived in the West as a repetition of the taking of the Quabbin Valley a half century ago. Diversion opponents dispute Boston's right to take water from western Massachusetts but fear most of all ecological harm to the river and its banks. Unfortunately the debate has been centered around a threat of immense environmental damage to the Connecticut River and its environs when in point of fact the amount of water to be was drawn from the Connecticut River and the circumstances of flood skimming almost cannot be measured. It's so insignificant an anomaly here with the Connecticut River we might be able to take water 20 times the conditions would exist

where we could take water 20 times. If we don't take the water then it just flows out to sea. No it goes down the whole Connecticut River before it gets to the sea and it does a real lot of things in between for one thing even in the flood period the high peaks scour the channel removing the specially defined materials that have accumulated in the stream channel and those fine materials are very often things like sewage and industrial effluent. And now let's stuff the scoured out during the flood period. And besides that scouring the way those finds produces rocky sandy bottom habitats that are the spawning places of various kinds of organisms. The statement that there will be irreparable harm to the Connecticut River I think is premature. Ah I see no way of saying that at this point in time we simply don't have the data that says whether there will be an impact or there won't be an impact. If you look for a point at which this is an absolute deterioration that anybody would notice it will never come. And it's a little

bit like the story about putting the putting a frog in a pan of water on the stove and then heating it up so slowly that the frog never knows when to jump there's never a moment at which it becomes suddenly much hotter and you can just gradually boil a frog that way and that's what I'm afraid of is that with the front that's going to be. How the Connecticut River flows 410 miles from the Canadian border to attest to area on the Long Island Sound. Its headwaters are the Connecticut lakes and northernmost New Hampshire. As the river flows south it defines the border between New Hampshire and Vermont then cuts through Massachusetts and Connecticut as the ice thaws in the spring the river swells. By the time it reaches the large dams Massachusetts it's the diversion would skim these flood waters and send 1 percent of the river's annual flow to Boston.

I don't effect the position of the soil on the land. We're talking 40 percent of it is true that the diversion would only amount to 1 percent of the river terrible. Every parish pointed out the pumps can pump 375 million gallons in 1 1 6 hours bringing the cup to the middle of the night that would be reducing by 41 percent on the average during the operation. I believe that we're going to take a different picture of environmental impacts than looking at it as being nearly 1 percent of the rivers. Besides the threat of ecological harm to the Connecticut River the diversion may pollute the Quabbin the river contains sewage parasites that prey on freshwater fish and nuclear contaminants from power plants upstream. THE QUABBIN is so large and pure that eagles fish its waters and coyotes prowl its banks adding class-B water to the Quabbin may endanger not only the

water supply but the wildlife sanctuary a valued resource in the West. We don't consider the river hours so much as we know that whatever goes on in regard to that river is going to affect us most intensely. And that what we are asking for are indeed what we're demanding is a share in the decision making that goes on in regard to that river. I think you're more likely to have a river flowing in 50 or 100 years if its management is put under the people who get to see you there for a day rather than people who are a hundred miles away and just barely aware that the river recede from here. I have difficulty with the concept of ownership of resources and I use ownership in quotation marks. I think that I view the resources in the state as resources of the Commonwealth. And I think that the root of the responsibility is to see how those Commonwealth resources can best be used to the

appropriate advantage of the Commonwealth. Concern over the taking of western Massachusetts resources has its roots in colonial history. Tension in Massachusetts between the urban east and the rural west came to a head in 1786 Shay's Rebellion. Daniel Shay's a revolutionary war hero led a band of eleven hundred men in an attack on the Springfield Arsenal protesting the jailing of western Massachusetts debtors by the provincial government in Boston. He plotted his revolution in Conky tavern in the town of Prescot a site now covered by Quabbin. He was soundly defeated by loyal state troops but the legacy of his anger remains in western Massachusetts and the highway that runs along the Quabbin Reservoir. There's his name. I think there is a definite schism at times between those of us here in the western end of the state and people in the eastern end of the state. This probably comes from a lack of understanding of the other people's point of view. And this is

one thing that I think we do see when it comes to something such as taking resources from this river basin and moving them to the east that there's a natural feeling for those of us out here that. The people in the more urban centers of this state are just out to get what they can get. Obviously Boston could not supply itself on a self sufficient basis within its own borders it simply doesn't have the well capacity or the amount of water available to meet its needs it's got to get water from elsewhere. It's at the present time. The system is operating at about ninety eight percent capacity. If you ask me Do I think we're going to have a not a shortage problem a new strain on our system what the NDC system the next twenty five seven years I'd say no. But do we have to look at things like the real crisis and say people were saying Look out look out be we have be where and have to always get burnt before we do the advanced planning route of supply

surge treatment considerations have to be planned in the 20 30 and 40 year range anything an investigation is underway in Abner's as to why all of a sudden the water shortage got out of head forcing the University of Massachusetts to be closed out. Ruth Ross has more on the investigation and the water supply level in town even and showery days like today the campus pond area of UMass is usually a beehive of activity but the campus has been evacuated for the most part and absent are the students and the thousands of gallons of water they consume each day. Amherst is in western Massachusetts on the border of the Quabbin yet it cannot drink from the reservoir. Demands for Quabbin water are coming from communities across the state. The MDC feels that the Northfield diversion is an efficient way to augment the reservoir so that more towns could be served. We're talking about the Quabbin Reservoir system that at the current level supplies about 40 percent of the population of Massachusetts. It is clearly the

largest wholesaler of water in the state and so we're talking about a solution. We're not just talking about one mechanism one pipe. We're really talking about a way of thinking for that system that utility to supply water not just in the first 10 years but maybe in the next 20 years 50 years. In 1975 the cost according to Core of Engineers would be about seventy five million dollars to build the diversion works. I'm not sure that for 75 million dollars you could save just about as much water by fixing leaks in the MTC system. The city of Boston is on the move with the problems a waste of water. We have an ongoing program of leak detection has been very successful. Part of the problem for water as is meat is under registering and I mean last year we tested 54 meters 18 of the MIAs were found to be not working properly and some of those a teammate is the boss of the

mission was losing revenue of over a million pounds and a lot of times a break in the water will come up to the surface you know sleeps I mean I don't mind a lot of times in my boat breaking the water will find its way into the ocean or into the sewer going detected for years and I believe some people are looking for like a doctor a stethoscope you can hear the water escaping through a small hole in the pipe 10 feet underground. We were only kind of 50 percent of the water in 1976 and 1979 we accounted for 60 percent of the lawn. He is exploring other alternatives for many water supply selective tree cutting in the water that is now increasing stream flow to the reservoirs. Other rivers could be diverted or a giant aquifer near Boston could be tapped and improved forms of conservation would raise reservoir levels. It's a water resource base of the Commonwealth which I believe belongs to the entire

state is not going to be shared statewide that is make it value wants to keep their water resources in the valley. Implication is that the eastern part of the state should stop where the water is make it valid. I wonder if that's something the valley residents really want a bond issue passes Tuesday the first with the Russians or I'm going to be a lot of irate citizens when they find out they're paying for water that they're not going to get us all take care. Actually Mr. Gibson you bring the former L.A. or you bring L.A. are you going to do that about in the Senate. Simple as that much you or I have no idea how much you want. I just want to know what you're worth over 10 million. Yes. Why are you doing it. How much better can you what can you divide it you can already have for the future Mr. gapes future.

Now I recall being at the opening of Robin when the water came over and it was quite a thrill. We were standing on this bridge and the water came over the DMN and right on down into the swift river and then you could see the result of many years of work and the labor of a great many who would say that Brits have a great many people finally ending up in an accomplishment that was a real engineering feat and I think that it was salvation of chips back in knowledge day trash predation. Just today we didn't figure to take it have a bell the time off by proxy just forget about it. I live in a matter of how you felt Valley not to laugh don't need that to doe you dad to rock on it to get out.

I didn't leave till I had gold. I've been asked if people were angry about this losing their property in the takeover. They they weren't angry they weren't angry people they were simply heartbroken. It's not a feeling of resentment because it was on this day by the system feeling that. Are they all sentimental things that they are any more for any individual whether major action like that was worth it or not I think it's very difficult to determine. Obviously for someone whose life was disrupted by it it was not worth it in the same way that it may be for the millions of people who have drunk that water ever since. Well of course in those days people work very much against it. Everyone in the valley was dead set against it but there was no organization in the way that we know of it today.

We had no environmental societies or anything like that to help us protest it. So while there was just as much feeling against the project in those days it was not the action against it that you would probably find today. Well I think that a lot of citizens are beginning to stand up and to take their place in the government. And not simply assume that what any governmental agency or what any bureaucracy says is right. Quite obviously for those of us in a minority those of us here in western Massachusetts we might not completely trust the general court so to speak because we can count the numbers like anyone else and we can see that if push comes to shove the votes are not with Western Massachusetts. A question I've been trying to ask inside information trying to get from the critics for almost seven or eight years. What is it. Is there a common ground that we can get to

what is it that the critics want is the answer absolutely no go away don't ever bother us. We don't want to hear from you people. I think that the people of western Massachusetts are concerned that the people of the metropolitan area of Boston have inadequate. Water Supply and I think the middle ground is for us to really be serious about finding the best solution to that problem. What they don't understand in my mind is that water is a commodity of life and we need it. And even if this project was to go forth and be completed and never necessary and never used it would be well worth our while for the heavy insurance. If we go ahead and just suddenly make a massive change in the resources in the state it can have long term effects. Therefore we shouldn't be afraid to take the time and effort to study it and study it as well as we know how to today to see just what the effect on population and citizens citizens and Boston citizens of

Northfield our neighbors to the north in Vermont New Hampshire and those to the south. It is definitely a complex issue and I don't know if any of us will ever understand all of it. I just like to go back to the OL plays and walk around. It's got tree 40 feet tall on my front lawn in my backyard. I like a step down because our place mobile home. You can take it when you come to so many beautiful trees think it's beautiful

it's beautiful but I want to remember next. You're weak. Yeah yeah me and

a birdie. And yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And worse than that.