For years, the community of Housatonic – a village within greater Great Barrington – has struggled with tainted tap water. As Great Barrington Selectboard Chair Stephen Bannon explained to WAMC in April, the issue has tormented locals for a long time.
“Some of the residents of Housatonic have a private water company called Housatonic Water [Works] Company, and especially in the summer, the water is not clean," he said. "It's very dark, and you can't drink it, you can't cook with it, you can't bathe in it. And this has been a very long-standing problem that the town has been trying to correct but not succeeded so far.”
This spring, Great Barrington held a special meeting to hear a citizen-driven proposal for one way the town could address the situation: buying both the Housatonic Water Works Company and the Great Barrington Fire District for around $4.3 million total.
"We would save money because Housatonic Water Works, for example, would be eligible for the low-cost rates and longer terms for borrowing, because we have to borrow a lot of money to fix everything," said Former Town Finance Committee Chair Sharon Gregory, who was behind the petition. "We would have a good strategy developed without having to suboptimize what decision making is for the two companies. When they make decisions, they're thinking about, yeah, Great Barrington Fire District, where could we find water, a second source within our territory? That's really not addressing the Great Barrington water needs, and I think the combination of the two, from a managerial and planning perspective, would be a huge benefit for the town.”
At the meeting in April, members of the Great Barrington selectboard, including Ben Elliot – who lives in Housatonic and is no stranger to its tainted water – argued against the plan. He said the town had already signed off on efforts to take over the water company in 2023, and said the current owners were to blame for delaying the process.
“We voted to obtain special counsel to negotiate the purchase, counsel who is now engaging Housatonic Water Works to sit down at the table," said Elliot. "We have started the negotiation process. We are on the path to acquiring the water works and developing an affordable, sustainable way to run it as a public utility, and this petition would introduce unnecessary complications that risk our ability to put together a good clean deal.”
Voters ultimately chose to reject Gregory’s plan and allow the selectboard to continue its efforts to acquire the water company.
In November, Great Barrington officially declared it had made a formal offer to buy the Housatonic Water Works. While the town has declined to comment on the size of the offer, the company has been valued at around $2.3 million.
In December, the town announced the expansion of a reimbursement program for anyone reliant on the tainted tap water. Selectboard chair Bannon told WAMC that anyone buying bottled water, filters, or using laundry services is eligible for up to $1,500 in state funding.
“Originally, we had offered $600 a person," he said. "We actually started at $300, then $600. We're now saying you can get total up to $1,500 reimbursement. So, we're hoping that people who are inconvenienced, and that's using that term loosely, people who really have problems, will take advantage of this. The state gave us $250,000 and we want to spend it all, and it needs to be spent by the end of 2026.”
The outcome of Great Barrington’s bid to buy the water works remains unresolved for now.
