MWRA pulls largest water transfer request in history after drawing backlash from Quabbin communities

THE STATE’S BIGGEST drinking water provider has nixed a groundbreaking request to draw an additional 20 million gallons of water per day out of the Quabbin Reservoir in a nod to the outrage it prompted within central Massachusetts communities.

The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which serves 61 municipalities mostly in and around Greater Boston, had pursued its plan — by far the largest withdrawal request in its history — in order to meet growing demand from new communities like Weymouth and Wayland looking to join the system.

But in addition to the size of its proposal, which totaled 10 percent of average annual demand, the agency faced fierce backlash for the process it deployed to win approval from state regulators at the Water Resources Commission. The proposal added fuel to an escalating feud with the small rural towns surrounding the Quabbin and their representatives on Beacon Hill.

Water transfers like the one the MWRA pitched here are governed by the 40-year-old Interbasin Transfer Act, in which state officials ensure that the move is environmentally sound and meets demonstrated need for both what’s known as the donor basin, the resource sending water elsewhere, and the receiving basin, or the area taking in more water.

Yet for the first time in state history, the MWRA sought the greenlight from state regulators on its donor basin proposal separately, before any receiving basin requests that may come in the future in an effort to streamline the process and cut red tape. If advanced, the MWRA could have had donor basin approvals in hand by the time new communities attempt to receive the water and join the system.

“It is clear that the use of that regulatory option added to confusion and concern, rather than allaying it,” Stephen Estes-Smargiassi, MWRA’s interim executive director, wrote in a letter to the Water Resources Commission on Thursday.

Estes-Smargiassi said the agency will “commit” to returning to the traditional process under the law, in which donor basin and receiving basin analyses are considered simultaneously.

But the decision may not kill the underlying drive to win approval for future requests to support system expansion.

Jonathan Gulliver, who was recently named the agency’s full-time executive director, supports withdrawing the request and “pursuing a more focused submission that addresses the demonstrated needs of the communities currently seeking admission to the MWRA system,” according to the letter.

The MWRA’s request landed the agency in even more hot water among Quabbin communities, which mobilized to kill the proposal.

Those small towns themselves don’t drink water from the reservoir, creating a cruel irony as private and municipal wells near the largest water body in the state dried up and towns instituted water restrictions during recent years’ record drought while MWRA customers faced few limits.

Plus, these communities are barred from developing — and therefore taxing — large sections of land around the reservoir to protect the water source from which they don’t benefit. The glaringly little state compensation they do receive for stewarding that land has further laid bare the intense fiscal shortfalls those towns confront as they cut public school workers, consolidate emergency services, and navigate local water crises of their own that in some cases render municipal buildings unusable.

To these towns, the MWRA’s water transfer request could feel more like an end run to expedite its expansion efforts in the eastern part of the state than a legitimate push to reduce bureaucracy.

Sen. Jo Comerford, who represents the Quabbin towns at the State House and is spearheading legislative reforms to boost payments to these communities and grant them a permanent seat on the MWRA board, said in a statement that the agency’s decision to pull back its transfer request is a “powerful recognition of the significant concerns” the towns raised.

“Arm in arm with statewide partners, constituents and the state legislative delegation showed up, raised our voices, and made clear that regional equity, the voices of watershed communities, and a shared potable water future must be centered in all decisions involving the Quabbin Reservoir,” Comerford said.

Gov. Maura Healey, who won a second term Tuesday, sided with the Quabbin communities’ concerns earlier this year — even though the MWRA argued the transfer request would help meet ambitious state housing goals that Healey has stressed are necessary to tackle a sweeping affordability crisis.

“Every day, these watershed communities provide an invaluable public service to the communities served by the MWRA system,” Healey wrote in a letter to the agency. “They continue to help protect the watershed’s natural resources while navigating infrastructure constraints, including limitations on their own water supply and economic development.”

Even with this transfer request off the table, Gulliver will step into the top spot at the MWRA in January amid major expansion plans and continued discontent from the communities surrounding the agency’s main water source.