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The Selectmen toast the completion a well-replacement project with water drawn from the town's new well No. 1 at Tuesday's meeting.

Williamstown Completes $1.2 Million Well Replacement

By Stephen DravisSpecial to iBerkshires
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Selectmen David Rempell drinks water from the newly replaced well.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — For the first time in several years, the town's water system is running as it is intended.

The Board of Selectmen heard a report on Tuesday night of the completion of a $1.12 million project to replace one of three wells that supply drinking water and public safety in the Village Beautiful.

Public Works Director Timothy Kaiser and Water and Sewer Superintendent Ed Rondeau detailed the project in what Town Manager Peter Fohlin described as a "celebration" of the town's new well No. 1.

"You might think that two wells would be enough for the town, but in our case, that's not safe enough," Fohlin said. "We can't run the town on just one well; that would require serious water usage restrictions. … And if you have two wells, you always run the risk of losing one. ... With three wells, we know we could always have two. Two is plenty, but one is not enough."

Now that the town again has three wells drawing water from an underground aquifer, it has the redundancy the system requires, Rondeau and Kaiser told the board.

Kaiser explained that the process of digging the new well faced some "bumps in the road," including a leak that required four tractor-trailer loads of cement grout to control.

Despite the "leak of the century" adding about $150,000 to the project, the new well still came in on budget, Kaiser said.

Major cost savings were achieved from the town's acquisition of a refurbished 100-kilowatt generator from the federal government for $900. The equipment helped the town realize a $120,000 cost saving from money that had been budgeted to bring power to the construction site. More savings were realized by pulling back labor from the contractor and using town employees, Kaiser said.


Kris Kirby, right, is sworn in as the newest member of Williamstown's Municipal Scholarship Committee.
The more than $1 million project budget is being funded over 30 years by increases to the town's water rates, Fohlin said, and he also took the opportunity to crow about the quality of the town's drinking water, which is supplied by surrounding mountains that feed the aquifer.

"We may have the best water in the state," Fohlin said as supplied the board members with water bottled from the town's newest well. "It's as good or better than Poland Spring."

  • In other business on Tuesday, the board set a public hearing for Monday, Oct. 22 at 7:05 p.m. to hear a request from the Richard Ruether American Legion Post 152 to make a change in its board of directors and an alteration to its premises.

The board also appointed Kris Kirby to a three-year term on the town's Municipal Scholarship Committee and accepted the resignation of Arthur Lafave as an associate member of the town's Zoning Board of Appeals.

Chairman David Rempell reminded all residents viewing the meeting on the town's community access television station, WilliNet, that there are several town boards with vacancies, including the Sign Commission and ZBA.

"We could use folks to step forward," Rempell said. "We can only continue to thrive as a community if people step forward. ... We'd love to have some help."
Tags: aquifer,   public works ,   Selectmen,   well,   

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Williamstown Select Board Awards ARPA Funds to Remedy Hall

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday allocated $20,000 in COVID-19-era relief funds to help a non-profit born of the pandemic era that seeks to provide relief to residents in need.
 
On a unanimous vote, the board voted to grant the American Rescue Plan Act money to support Remedy Hall, a resource center that provides "basic life necessities" and emotional support to "individuals and families experiencing great hardship."
 
The board of the non-profit approached the Select Board with a request for $12,000 in ARPA Funds to help cover some of the relief agency's startup costs, including the purchase of a vehicle to pick up donations and deliver items to clients, storage rental space and insurance.
 
The board estimates that the cost of operating Remedy Hall in its second year — including some one-time expenses — at just north of $31,500. But as board members explained on Monday night, some sources of funding are not available to Remedy Hall now but will be in the future.
 
"With the [Williamstown] Community Chest, you have to be in existence four or five years before you can qualify for funding," Carolyn Greene told the Select Board. "The same goes for state agencies that would typically be the ones to fund social service agencies.
 
"ARPA made sense because [Remedy Hall] is very much post-COVID in terms of the needs of the town becoming more evident."
 
In a seven-page letter to the town requesting the funds, the Remedy Hall board wrote that, "need is ubiquitous and we are unveiling that truth daily."
 
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