Behind the Times

Water on the brain

Posted on April 7, 2008 by Michael Ballway
Filed Under Clinton, Mike's posts, Sterling |

More Wekepeke brouhaha over the past week, as the saga of a salacious boy and his overactive water drill threatens to eclipse Tom Brady, “fashionisto” (66 reader comments as of Monday afternoon!), as the top story in New England today.

A quick run-through:

First there’s this NECN video report on the controversy. Not much we didn’t already know here. Good b-roll of Town Administrator Michael Ward walking up the steps of Town Hall. Also an admission: Clinton’s town lawyers are now “looking into” whether Clinton has the legal right to sell Wekepeke water. I thought Clinton officials had previously considered this settled in Clinton’s favor.

Then there’s the Boston Globe story from April 4. Clinton seeking to exploit a town-owned resource is a “slap in the face,” says one activist. One small criticism: the Globe graphic of the area in dispute appears to be an illustration of the Wekepeke watershed, which stretches to the east of Route 12 into Lancaster; as far as I know (I may be wrong), the “area in dispute” is limited to the 564 acres owned by Clinton, which (as far as I know) are west of Route 12 in Sterling and a sliver of Leominster.

The story, like many of ours in this thread, treats the battle as “Clinton versus Sterling” or “Clinton and Nestle versus Sterling and environmentalists.” This is not entirely accurate. Some in Clinton oppose the Nestle deal; some in Sterling are, at least, not opposed to it. And far from the battle royale it’s made out to be, there’s talk of a possible compromise in Sterling — something we don’t hear about much in Clinton, much as it seems folks in Sterling don’t hear much of the “moderate” or even anti-Nestle views some Clintonians hold. From The Globe:

In Sterling, some officials say they hope to derail the Nestle plan by striking a deal with Clinton. Paul Sushchyk, a Sterling selectman, said he would like to see Sterling co-own the Wekepeke lands to aid Clinton with the costs of upkeep. The state has ordered Clinton to make repairs of dams on the Wekepeke lands, which are estimated to cost more than $1 million.

And on the World-Wide Internets: Last week supercybersleuth Ken MacGray of ClintonMass.com found what he’s calling the “Wekepedia” article, which is about the watershed but briefly touches on the Nestle controversy. It doesn’t read much like an encyclopedia, and for a few hours Thursday it had some blatant editorializing on it. This is why we try not to use Wikipedia as a reference, although apparently they’re using us.

In the comments of my blog post on this subject last week, Tony Marini pointed out that the Sterling Concerned Citizens now have their own Web site to rebut the Nestle corporate brochure that went up in February ~~(and appears to be down as of Monday afternoon … maybe that’s just my connection, though)~~.

As of a week and a half ago, the Concerned Citizens say they’ve got 510 signatures on a petition and hope to get to 1,500. The petition reads:

We, the undersigned, believe that water is a basic right for all people, and that freshwater is a shared legacy, a public trust and the essence of life itself. Furthermore, the citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are guaranteed the right to clean air and water by Article 97 of the Articles of the Amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution. Therefore, we demand that all water located in the Town of Sterling be reserved solely for purposes of the public good and never be sold for profit. We also demand that the Board of Selectmen of Sterling do all that is necessary and required to prohibit and prevent the Town of Clinton from selling or permitting the sale of any waters of the Wekepeke.

There’s also supposedly going to be a “democracy school,” which sounds like a combination between political rally, class-action lawsuit and civics course on steroids, later this month.

And then there’s ongoing news aggregation from the Sterling side of things, for which there’s no better source than Lance Harris’ No Drumlins Blog. And that’s not just me talking — Boston metro blogger Universal Hub has taken notice, too.