Selectmen unanimously support negotiating with Andover on water pact

Published in the September 7, 2017 edition

By MAUREEN DOHERTY

NORTH READING — What a difference two weeks makes!

With a collective sigh of relief, North Reading’s Board of Selectmen voted unanimously Tuesday night to accept Andover’s latest offer and continue investigating whether it makes better sense to stick with Andover as the town’s water supplier and scrap plans to join the MWRA.

The relationship between the two towns had all the makings of a messy divorce back on August 21, but after Tuesday’s vote the two towns appear to be heading down the aisle for a renewal of vows that could solidify the union between them for the next century.

With a 3-2 split simmering in the background and an ultimatum issued Aug. 21 for Andover to come to the table within a week with a signed commitment detailing this renewed partnership, negotiations continued to be led in private workshop meetings by Selectmen Bob Mauceri and Steve O’Leary, Town Administrator Michael Gilleberto, and the town’s water department and professional consulting firm of Wright-Pierce with their Andover counterparts to reach the current accord.

Andover came through with a 4-1 vote Aug. 28 that took care of the most pressing concerns, including an agreement to reimburse the town for the nearly $1M already spent attempting to tie into the MWRA via a connection in Reading.

Mauceri was happy to report Tuesday night that Andover has committed to pay the town 10 equal payments of $95,300 per year until that $953,000 debt is repaid. Another negotiation reached is to pursue a means to provide the town of Reading with an assurance of a water supply redundancy, just in case one is ever needed, if something happens with that town’s water agreement with the MWRA.

Also gone is the dreaded five-year buyout clause that could have been deployed by either side at any point in the 99-year lease – provided the exiting party agreed to pay a penalty of five years’ value of the contracted water amount.

Selectmen Chairman Mike Prisco pointed out that a clause such as that would have no place in a contract between the two towns “if we are going to have a true partnership.” Andover’s willingness to let that clause die on the vine was an indication to the North Reading selectmen that the current partnership with Andover exists on more solid footing today than when that clause came about.

Other agreements concern the water rate Andover will charge the town, which will be 95 percent of the cost of the lowest tier Andover will charge its own residents, and extensions of current agreements between the two towns plus a commitment to work together in all other aspects of the required permitting process at the state and local levels.

Selectmen in both towns will have to convince their own Town Meeting voters that this deal makes the most fiscal sense and that the science behind the data proves the plan is possible – that the water supply from the Merrimack River, from which Andover gets its water, is truly legitimate.

Andover also understands that it must give North Reading the flexibility to keep the MWRA option on the back burner and shifting focus away from completing that transition in order to investigate the Andover connection more in depth will require adjustments to the current contract between them for water purchases.

Unlike past meetings, Andover representatives chose to attend North Reading’s Sept. 5 selectmen’s meeting. Among the contingent was Andover Selectmen Chairman Paul Salafia, Andover’s town manager and Andover’s professional team of consultants. Salafia said they wanted to show good faith and to answer any of North Reading’s immediate questions.

Toby Fedder, PE, Andover’s consultant from Woodard and Curran, told the board that the Merrimack River has an “inexhaustible amount of water available” and he therefore believes that Andover will certainly have the capacity to supply 100 percent of North Reading’s needs now and into the future.

Rob Williamson, North Reading’s water consultant from Wright-Pierce, concurred with Fedder, stating he believes the Merrimack River, which begins in New Hampshire, and the Merrimack River Basin has an “almost infinite supply” of water available.

As Prisco pointed out, North Reading never wanted to pursue the MWRA connection, but several years ago, a different set of players in Andover had put North Reading’s back up against the wall by not agreeing to the town’s request to increase its water supply from two-thirds capacity to 100 percent that would have enabled North Reading to retire its wells.

Prisco commented that a lot of “political capital” was expended to get to this point with the MWRA, so to abandon all of that effort, the deal with Andover has to be one that can stand up to the test of time.

Prisco commended Mauceri, O’Leary and Gilleberto for seeing these negotiations through to arrive at this point in the process. He also apologized for playing hardball with Andover. But Salafia said there was no need for Prisco to apologize given what is at stake – ensuring that current and future generations of the town’s residents have adequate water supplies to fulfill all of their needs.