The Bristol County Water Authority’s decision to raise rates 10 percent and abandon the current reservoir system makes little sense to me. The plan to dismantle the dams at Schoolhouse Road and Child Street in Warren will destroy two freshwater habitats.

Don’t these habitats have any environmental value? The BCWA wants to flood 15 percent of Warren’s land mass with salt water at a time when Warren is number one in the state for the greatest potential for saltwater intrusion.

In recent years, the BCWA has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars rebuilding the dam at the Anawan reservoir and purchasing land to protect the 38 square miles of watershed in Warren, Rehoboth, and Swansea. This system has the potential to produce 60 million gallons of water daily and current demand is about 4 million gallons.

Now they want to spend additional money to tear down two of the major dams in the system.

When the Cross-Bay Pipeline was completed, the State of Rhode Island required the BCWA to maintain the reservoir system (Anawan, Shad, Kickemuit reservoirs and Barrington wells). They did not maintain, let the system fall into disrepair, and it is now not functioning.

BCWA is paying taxes on unutilized property worth well over $6 million. Where do they get money for the taxes? The rate payers.

In this day of limited resources and uncertainty with supply, it seems foolish to abandon such a valuable resource.

Bob Hamel
Bristol