For years, one of the largest, unfiltered water supplies in the country has been keeping much of the Boston area wet – a 412 billion gallon reservoir found in western Massachusetts.
But, while one side of the state has reaped plenty of benefits, calls for regional equity have been getting louder on the side of the hosts. On Friday, state water resource officials sat in to hear local concerns.
Water, water everywhere, nor much compensation for the towns it sits between.
It’s long been the case for the communities sitting alongside the Quabbin Reservoir – an iconic body of water that stretches some 39 square miles and packs plenty of scenery, greenery and, of course, water.
About 200 million gallons of the stuff heads eastward daily, according to local state lawmakers. With few exceptions, like Chicopee, Wilbraham and South Hadley, that water largely serves the Boston area.
In return, various Quabbin communities like Belchertown, Pelham and New Salem see some benefits, including “Payment In Lieu of Taxes” or PILOT money - but, it’s nowhere near enough, saysBelchertown Rep. Aaron Saunders.
“We get a little less than $3 million a year for all communities combined… and I've heard it said before that the MWRA is the largest taxpayer in some of these communities, which is technically accurate: it's not a defense; it's an admission,” the Democrat said Friday, July 10. “It's an admission of how criminally small the consideration for our communities have been for decades and decades.”
Speaking in a packed room at the reservoir’s Visitor’s Center in Belchertown, Saunders, other lawmakers and representatives from about a dozen towns went before the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.
The MWRA’s board made the trip to western Mass. Friday, listening for two hours to select board chairs and town administrators about how short-changed communities their communities feel.
As Shutesbury’s Elaine Puleo said, it’s not just PILOT funding, either. The 120,000-acre reservoir watershed goes beyond the shorelines and includes at least 30 percent of the Franklin County town of 1,700 – and puts development off limits.
“Well-over one-third of our town's total landmass is state-owned forest - permanently preserved to protect the Quabbin Watershed. As you have been told, we can't even walk our dogs on that,” Puleo said. “We're proud of our role as stewards of this invaluable resource, but pride does not pave our roads, it doesn't fund our schools and it doesn't balance our municipal budget.”
Even recreational benefits, like fishing, have been the subject of limits and restrictions, said State Rep. Todd Smola. The Warren Republican added that local fishermen and sportsmen in general play a significant role in monitoring the area.
“I can tell you that those individuals that are on those water bodies … they are the great stewards of the Quabbin Reservoir,” Smola said. “They are the first people to report if something wrong is taking place on these lands, if something needs to be paid attention to.”
It’s not a new situation: ever since coming to be in the 1930s, when four entire towns were disincorporated to make way for the reservoir, questions of fairness have persisted.
In New Salem’s case, about 91 percent of the town includes “Quabbin acres,” according to a fact sheet handed out by locals.
They contend it's acreage that’s not fairly valued when PILOT revenue is doled out. Despite 34,000 acres being off-the-table for development, New Salem allegedly only sees about $722,000 in PILOT dollars – about $21 an acre.
All the while, Select Board Chair Richard Taupier tells WAMC, the town’s emergency services are among the very first to act when something goes wrong at the Quabbin.
“Whenever anybody's in trouble: driving there, hiking - it's our emergency response personnel that have to deal with it,” he explained. “I could just go on and on and on in terms of the different burdens that our status places on us…”
It’s costly, he says, in an area that already has little in the way of a tax base and other fiscal barriers
“It is indeed a beautiful and wonderful place to live… but you do that at great sacrifice, personal sacrifice,” he said. “Neither of my sons, who are now around 40, could afford to move back into our town, and that's very sad for us.”
In the pursuit of equity, officials and locals have been lobbying the state for years, including legislation looking to bolster funding. This past year, progress has been showing, says State Senator Jo Comerford, who’s Hampshire, Franklin and Worcester district includes multiple Quabbin communities.
House and Senate “environmental bond bills” appear to be making progress in the legislature, the Democrat says.
The senate version alone includes the creation of a “Quabbin Host Community Trust Fund” to “support access to potable water and public services” within the watershed, while also expanding the MWRA Board to include representation from the watershed communities. Also – at least another $50,000 for each affected town for two years.
“I would call today very positive in terms of momentum. I would say we have a lot of work to do to secure what's fair and equitable and to build, really for the first time, a partnership. Right now, what we have is extraction - we heard that word used today - they extract the resources,” Comerford told WAMC after the meeting, referring to the western Mass. water that ends up in eastern Mass. for the most part. “It's like a Hunger Games mentality, where we feed the capital out here, with very little regard for the woes of our people, and it's not charity that we're asking for; it's justice, and it's time that we had that justice.”
As for the MWRA - it's chair, state Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Rebecca Tepper, indicated all feedback was welcome and necessary.
She also pointed out the state has an edict to review how it handles PILOT compensation - it was the subject of an executive order issued by Governor Maura Healey last year.
Per Tepper, a PILOT listening session is slated for July 16, hosted by the Franklin Regional Council of Governments.
—
A shortened version of this story originally aired on Friday, July 10, 2026.
