BURRILLVILLE – The town has hired a firm to design a water system for Nasonville, the latest step in a longterm project aimed at addressing contamination in the village and spurring economic development.
Pare Corporation was chosen for the project, one of three bidders to offer professional engineering design services for the Nasonville Village Water Supply & Distribution System. The work will be paid for with a $1 million Emerging Contaminants Grant secured from the Environmental Protection Agency through the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank earlier this year.
“In order to do economic development and growth in the village we needed water and sewer to basically accomplish those things in the long term,” said Town Manager Michael Wood during a presentation to the Town Council last week.
Multiple small public water systems in Nasonville have shown PFAS contamination in recent testing, giving urgency to ongoing efforts to improve infrastructure in the area.
“The sewer has taken a separate path,” said Wood. “This project is more important and obviously a priority for the Town Council.”
The town hired Bob Ferrari of Northeast Water Solutions, Inc. to serve as a consultant for the project, with his firm working in recent months to identify potential new water sources. Last week, Ferrari told the council Northeast has identified two or three potential sources that may be viable, including an unused well field on Tarkiln Brook first evaluated in the 1980s.
“We’re going to be going through the permitting process this fall on that,” Ferrari said.
Ferrari said a second source with a yield of up to 1 million gallons a day is available in neighboring North Smithfield. He added that his firm has also explored the possibility of working with the Clear River Electric and Water District to supply the water. The service area is expected to have an average daily demand of 267,000 gallons per day.
“We have some other possible sources out there,” Ferrari said.
For the complex engineering work, which involves crossing three rivers, installation in state roadways and four possible locations for storage tanks, Pare will need input from the Rhode Island Departments of Health, Environmental Management and Transportation.
“That’s a crucial aspect of this project,” said Ferrari, noting Pare has extensive experience working with the agencies. “There’s a lot of structural engineering here. We feel we have a very good firm. Pare has offered the town an outstanding team across the board.”
A 54-year-old firm with offices in Lincoln and Massachusetts, Pare noted that it plans to work with subconsultants from SMR Engineering, PC; DiPrete Engineering; and GeoLogic-Earth Exploration, Inc. on the Burrillville project.
“Pare has designed and permitted water distribution system infrastructure projects for Public Water Systems throughout the State of Rhode Island,” notes the proposal. “Many of these systems have the same elements as this project – a single water supply well, a new system storage tank, and new distribution piping.”
The consultant said that while similar water system design projects end at the curb, his team found that in Nasonville, the vast majority of residents and businesses have their wells in back of the properties.
“There’s nothing existing in the front of the property. We factored that in,” Ferrari said. “We asked for a line item to include a design of connection all the way into the house.”
He said the project also has a community outreach component to it and that public workshops will be held throughout the process.
“We need to have input from the residents who are impacted or potentially impacted by the project,” said Ferrari.
Councilors on Wednesday, Sept. 24 asked several questions about the potential water sources and proposed tank locations.
“It’s encouraging that there are a number of decent sources,” said Councilor Dennis Anderson.
Wood said that Pare’s work will be critical to securing funding to build the distribution system, estimated to cost $25 million.
“This will give us a really good opportunity in the future,” Wood said.
“Sewer and water are so critical,” agreed Council President Donald Fox. “It’s possible to do, but this is a critical, critical component.”
Councilors unanimously authorized the town manager to sign a contract for the services.
$25 Million? When everyone in that area is already on wells? I feel like it wouldn’t even be possible to generate $25 million worth of additional income/property tax from any “economic development” a water system would create.
If the issue is contamination, why not remediate or point-of-use filtration systems?
Just to clarify/add to the above: They discussed that the town hopes to apply for more grants to fund the project but engineering must first be completed.