Editorial: A water crisis years in the making

Posted 5/16/19

When Bristol County’s cross-bay pipeline was constructed 20 years ago, it was celebrated as a remarkable feat of engineering and ingenuity. Faced with the daunting task of bringing fresh, …

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Editorial: A water crisis years in the making

Posted

When Bristol County’s cross-bay pipeline was constructed 20 years ago, it was celebrated as a remarkable feat of engineering and ingenuity. Faced with the daunting task of bringing fresh, drinkable water to a sliver of land surrounded on three sides by salt water, the Bristol County Water Authority devised a plan that was literally heralded around the world.

Crews drilled a trench through bedrock 160 feet beneath the Providence River, fed a 24-inch pipe through a 4,800-foot trench and brought potable water from the Scituate Reservoir to the Providence water system, the East Providence water system and finally the Bristol County water system.

When it was complete, Bristol County’s 45,000 residents had access to a water supply so good, so reliable, they did not need anything else.

Oh, that’s right … we forgot there was something else.

For a century before the pipeline existed, Bristol County had its own water supply. Fed by reservoirs in Swansea and Rehoboth, a series of dams, streams and pipes brought water through woods and fields, beneath roads like Route 6 and Interstate 195, to the scenic Kickemuit Reservoir, best seen from Child Street in Warren.

Sitting beside the reservoir was a little treatment plant that sucked in the water, made it drinkable and pumped it out to Barrington, Warren and Bristol. The water supply was not perfect. People complained of the taste, and they occasionally had to deal with outdoor water restrictions — which were common in the hot summers when it had not rained in weeks.

It was not perfect, but it sustained life in the region 95 percent of the time.

Today it cannot. Despite state law requiring maintenance of a redundant water supply, and despite the warnings of a few passionate critics (including this paper many times), numerous water directors and executive directors let the system wither. The water still flows into the reservoir, but it is not as clean nor robust as it once was, due to lack of maintenance, and the treatment plant is dead.

Now comes a real crisis. The cross-bay pipeline is dead, too.

The water authority is running out of options as it tries to fix a massive pipe broken deep underground. They now hope they can slip a new pipe inside the old, broken pipe, though they don’t yet know where the break is, how big it is, or whether the new pipe can pass through it. And even if they can slip-line the entire 4,800-foot length of the pipe, it will not hold the volume it once did (smaller pipe = less water).

The situation is not dire yet, but it’s tilting in that direction.

No one could have predicted the cross-bay pipeline would fail this spring, but they could have predicted it would fail sometime. Bristol County has been vulnerable to this type of calamity for a long time.

There is a solution. A new pipeline that’s been in the planning stages for years will bring water from Pawtucket to East Providence and Bristol County. That project will obviously be fast-tracked, with a steep price tag and a lot of urgency.

There are two great ironies here. First, the primary reason for neglecting and abandoning the old, reliable water supply, including upgrades to the treatment plant, was money. Secondly, if the cross-bay pipeline can’t be fixed, then Bristol County will be back to having just one reliable water supply — with that elusive, secondary water supply still out of reach.

If only Bristol County had other options. If only it had its own water supply, bringing fresh water to its now 50,000 residents. If only it could produce its own water, rather than buy water from its neighbors. If only anyone had seen this coming …

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MIKE REGO

Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.