CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The Briggsville Water District got a positive response on a proposal to contract with the town to do its billing and collections.

 

The district is a public drinking water system that serves nearly 65 households and commercial properties, mostly along River Road. Members had approached the town five years ago about taking over the district but, after finding that impossible, reconstituted with a new board of commissioners and goals. 

 

Carl McKinney, chairman of the district and also town administrator, asked the Select Board last week if it would be open to processing the district's bills.

 

"We're not looking to make an agreement today but to discuss a broad overview in that if the town is interested in further discussions, and entering into a potential agreement," he said. "We would like to offer $300 a month, or $3,600 a year, for having the new treasurer/collector process our payments and send out the bills once a year."

 

Select Board Chair Danielle Luchi noted they had had discussions on the matter for more than a year and wondered why there wasn't an agreement in front of the board. 

 

"It makes sense to share the services," she said. "And I have a feeling that the new the tax collector/treasurer, the new person who comes in, it's not going to be a huge task for them to take on."

 

McKinney said the commissioners had not yet drafted an agreement and wanted to make sure the Select Board was interested first.

 

The town has the ability to legally put liens on properties and provide certificates of municipal liens in the cases of sales, something the district cannot do. This makes it difficult for the district to collect delinquincies and means new owners may not be aware their houses have payments in arrears.

 

"That impacts a lot of issues because then we don't get paid, then that bill gets transferred to the new owner, and it causes a whole lot of problems," McKinney said. "We've had people who are in arrears quite considerably, thousands of dollars."

 

He said the process wouldn't be very labor intensive and that district would be putting up close to 20 percent of its annual budget of $19,000. 

 

"As you know, where we are trying to upgrade the system, we have a whole lot of issues that we want to resolve," McKinney said. "We're trying to position the district into whereby we can upgrade the system, aggressively go after grants and know exactly what we need to do to expand the resiliency of the system."

 

The district currently has a request for proposals out for a preliminary engineering report, using a Rural Community Assistance Partnership grant. It also hopes to hire an operator to manage the water system and build out its sustainability by constructing reservoirs for customers and for the Fire Department. It purchased a house next the Red Mills Spring that will eventually be demolished to make way for the reservoirs.

 

The system more recently suffered a major break that left four customers (including himself) with limited water access. McKinney said the average usage is about 14,000 gallons a day but until the break was found and fixed, it was closer to 140,000 gallons. 

 

The reservoir would be designed to hold about two days worth of water, or about 27,000 gallons. The current reservoir at the aquifer is about 2,700 gallons. The idea is to write a grant that would include the Fire Department having its own tank for fill up because, McKinney said, with climate change, the ability to draw from river ways may not always be possible. 

 

"And then when you're drawing, you know, semi-dirty water into your tank, you're not doing it any favors," he said. "You have the potential of disturbing the natural waterborne ecosystem."

 

Costs for an operator and to demolish the house are high and the district will be increasing rates "more aggressively" than it has been, McKinney said. It's gone up in increments of $30 and $50 a year over the past decades and is now about $400, but will likely jump to $600.