We are the poster child for Westport” and its water situation. “This is all about planning for the future and acting today.”

Thomas Gebhard

In the past, the water salinity would go down, the wells would recover somewhat. (The wells) haven’t done that this year. They are sucking very brackish water out of the wells and they are really concerned.”

James Whitin

WESTPORT — With salt water overwhelming their existing water supply, some Westport Harbor homeowners have embarked on a search for someplace new to drill wells.

Their plight, and the daunting cost and complexity of possible solutions, reached the Planning Board recently and prompted a larger discussion about rising sea levels and the possible need for public water districts in town.

He was contacted recently “by some of the folks who are trying to create a new water supply system down at the Harbor,” board Chairman James Whitin said.

“Instead of the $1.2 million which they had budgeted for, it looks like it’s going to be $1.7 million,” he said.

Drinking water has long been an issue in that part of town — the Westport Harbor Water Association relies on one century-old well near the shore of Cockeast Pond by the old Harbor Inn (a “new" well, which is from the 1920s, has been abandoned because it has worse water than the first well).

Lately things have taken a turn for the worse, he said, to the point that many people don’t drink the water, especially in summer. 

“As it gets saltier and saltier, (the water) corrodes the pipes of the houses and of the water system itself,” Mr. Whitin said. There are reconstructed houses and new houses, some that “are huge ... I don’t know how they get a permit when they don’t have any drinking water but they do.”

They test the water from their two old wells monthly and what typically happens is that, at this time of year, “the water salinity would go down, the wells would recover somewhat. (The wells) haven’t done that this year. They are sucking very brackish water out of the wells and they are really concerned” that they need to find new water supply in time for summer.

Their search for answers led them to a 12-acre wooded lot further north in the area of Cross Road and River Road, Mr. Whitin said. They are digging test wells and, if those produce as hoped, they’ve agreed to buy the property for $600,000 for the purpose of drilling new water supply wells.

“Then they’ve got to get the town let them lay pipe along Cross Road and River Road down to the Harbor.”

All of that — including the tests and engineering — is a lot for one neighborhood to handle, Mr. Whitin said.

If this were a municipal water system or district, a Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) grant from the state might pay 75 percent of the cost, but that is not now the case.

“It would make sense for this location and the other dozen little locations” around the river “that eventually we are going to have to do something about because all of these places” face real problems. “As sea level rises, it will become impossible to have good water.”

Mr. Whitin added that at Cadman’s Neck, the wells go down only 8 to 12 feet — “that little lens of good water will be raised up above the ground.”

A ‘poster child for the town’

Thomas Gebhard, president of the non-profit Westport Harbor Water Association, said the association’s wells date back to around 1895 when the system got its start (as the Westport Harbor Aqueduct Company).

Salt has been turning up in the water, especially in mid-summer when demand is at its peak, for quite a while, he said, but the situation has grown steadily worse. This year, salinity levels have remained high, even through the low demand winter.

“The water meets all requirements,” and is tightly regulated and tested, he said. “It is perfectly safe to consume, but normally, as the salinity rises especially in the summer, people who are trying to go on a low salt diet avoid drinking it.” 

Interestingly, he added, the government recommends salinity levels but doesn’t shut a supplier down for exceeding those guidelines.

Mr. Gebhard follows that drinking water timetable and said that a salty taste used to be undetectable until summer.

They are now pinning their hopes on the test wells, digging for which was scheduled to start recently. If those test wells perform as hoped, they will be converted to working wells producing water that will be piped to the association’s 50 or so customers.

“Our vision is to create a water supply that can bring additional users to the system,” Mr. Gebhard said, including if need be, participants in a nearby water association whose water supply is also experiencing difficulties.

What’s happening at Westport Harbor should serve as early warning to many areas of town, he said. Along the shore, the issues include saltwater intrusion as demand increases and seawater rises. Further north in town, contaminants from various sources, including nitrates from farming, are turning up in wells. And in many places that have neither sewers nor public water supplies, lots are too small to safely hold both a septic system and a well.

Mr. Gebhard thinks the town needs to investigate some form of municipal water district system.

Operating a small water supply like ours is an extremely complicated endeavor for a group of volunteers, he said. “There are very strict regulations, state and EPA,” and the number of required tests seems to grow by the year.

“We do the best we can but every year it gets more complicated.”

And expensive, he added, as they quickly discovered with this latest project.

“There is a lot of federal infrastructure money out there to help, but everybody’s got to be rowing the boat in the same direction to make that happen.

“We are the poster child for Westport” and its water situation. “This is all about planning for the future and acting today.”

Water districts an answer?

“I think we have to look at districting,” board member Manuel Soares said, adding that such a system would also be beneficial in the Route 6 area where businesses are tying in to a Fall River line.

“We know there are a lot of contaminated wells throughout the town,” John Bullard said, adding that he is in favor of appplying for another round of vulnerability grants.

Perhaps, through Town Meeting or with help from Senator Rodrigues, the town could set up a fund that would be available to assist neighborhoods that are willing “to get together and (form) water districts or wastewater districts to solve their problems. If you are first to the table, you get matching funds. If you are last, if you hem and haw, you don’t.”

But he said he worries “about an ad hoc process that gets a subsidy to one neighborhood. Some of the neighborhoods (over by Cockeast Pond) are pretty wealthy. It can seem arbitrary and capricious and that can cause problems.”

A challenge with creating water districts, Mr. Whitin said, “is local control. It is antithetical to neighborhoods that all of a sudden the town is going to tell us what to do,” although the cost of rebuilding a water supply is beyond the means of most neighborhoods to accomplish alone.

“I think we need to get on this road but there are complexities,” Robert Daylor said. Do they buy the land and then the town develops the water supply? There have to be restrictions around public water supplies — the town will have to control that. Is the town going to lay the water pipe?

Westport Harbor is already going down that path, Mr. Whitin said, “but they are just being overwhelmed by the cost.”

“I think there is absolutely no chance of getting a new water supply authorized by DEP for this summer if they haven’t drilled a test well yet,” Mr. Daylor said.

He suggested that the town planner contact the Barnstable (Cape Cod) planner. He said Barnstable, a bit like Westport, consists of a number of small villages that have developed water districts over time. Mr. Soares said Dartmouth and Swansea have been through a similar process.

Mark Schmid recommended that the issues be part of the Westport’s Master Plan review.