Northfield water project will increase water supply, taxes

By Dan Robinson
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

As the town of Northfield looks to the future growth of its community, several key factors are being renovated in order for the township to progress. One is the water supply that delivers gallons of water per minute to the townspeople and surrounding areas.

On April 1, 2002, construction began on a two-part project that will ultimately cost $2.2 million to manufacture, according to Bill Lyon, superintendent of public works. Although badly needed, this production will raise customers' taxes significantly in order to pay for it.

"It will definately affect the customer; anybody that has access to the water pays for the water bill, and his or her rates went up considerably for the system," Lyon said.

Dale Mauldin, 19, a junior communications major from Belchertow, Mass., said, "I don't care how much it costs just as long as we don't have another water restriction like the one we had my freshman year that was due to the contaminants that were in the water."

"The taxes in Northfield are not the highest in the state; they are somewhere around the twelfth highest throughout the state and somewhere close to being in the top percentile in central Vermont, which is the Washington County Montpelier area," said Northfield Municipal Manager Charles Morse.

"You don't have a lot of counties to compete with, so the taxes are an issue as well as the utilities," said Morse. "We, however, because of the economics of Vermont, are faced with high energy costs."

"I don't think that people understand the issues in exactly what they need to build that cost that much money," according to Bill Estill, Norwich communications professor and Northfield resident. "When you think about that much money and what it might do to our taxes, it's a scary proposition."

Although taxes will be affected, Lyon said the repairs to the water system are badly needed.

"The existing water system requires work, and over a period of time you start looking for what those improvements could be, and these improvements have been identified for 20 years or so," Lyon said.

The improvements will start with the first part of the operation.

"There's work within the well field, which includes a new water pump and rehab and improvements to the two old pumps," said Lyon. "It will become an automated system, and the existing system was manually operated.

"This will have controls on it and will converse to each other through radio waves; it will notify each of the pumps of the elevations of the reservoirs is such and such, and turn the pumps on when needed, and turn them off when not needed," Lyon said.

"The other part of this project is a new million-gallon reservoir located on Garvey Hill," Lyon explained. "That will, in fact, with existing 500 gallons' storage, give us a million and a half gallons in storage."

"That's three days' supply; we're using about 500,000 (gallons) a day, and it also furnishes fire flows for firers and emergencies," Lyon said.

Morse added that "as far as the cost of taxes, I think everybody understands that what you are paying for is the quality of life in a peaceful rural setting. We have a small community, so the cost for taxes is high."

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