Quabbin quenches Boston's thirst

Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, Mass. 

BELCHERTOWN - The creation of the Quabbin Reservoir in the late 1930s changed the shape of Massachusetts, wiping four towns off the map and displacing 2,500 residents to quench Boston's growing thirst.

But the reservoir, gouged into the map at the expense of the towns of Dana, Prescott, Greenwich and Enfield, influenced the region beyond creating four ghost towns. It altered the futures of some communities, created a vast habitat for timberland and nesting eagles and likely sheltered western Massachusetts from urbanization westward.

"Even though we received it from Boston by coercion, it's now seen as a gift," Douglas Albertson, town planner for Belchertown, said of the reservoir. "To me, because I didn't suffer from its creation, the Quabbin is a joy, a refuge."

"It's a vast area, and it means different things to different people," said Les Campbell, 74, a photographer noted for his Quabbin scenes. Campbell has lived near the reservoir since it was built, and worked in its water quality laboratory for 44 years, until he retired several years ago.

First and foremost, the reservoir is a drinking-water supply, owned and operated by the Metropolitan District Commission. It has a capacity of 412 billion gallons, stretches across 39 square miles, with 181 miles of shoreline and 60,000 acres of protected watershed land, and supplies 2.4 million people with 260 million gallons of water a day.

It is one of the largest man-made drinking-water supplies in the United States. So clean, it is one of the few unfiltered surface drinking-water sources left in the country.

The water's wake

The road map also changed when the Quabbin was created. New roads were built to skirt the reservoir, as it was an impenetrable barrier for the old traffic patterns.

"I think the Quabbin defines western Mass.," said Albertson. "It forms the border where western Mass. begins."

Route 202 was extended through Belchertown and Pelham, connecting those towns to Athol and north, and Route 122 was built along the northern edge of the Quabbin. Route 21, which had connected Ludlow and Springfield to Enfield and the Swift River Valley through Belchertown, now ends at Route 9. Its remnant, Old Enfield Road in Belchertown, stops at MDC land.

"Belchertown probably had more positive impacts than other towns" from the building of the reservoir, said J.R. Greene, an Athol historian who has written a dozen books about the Quabbin area. "The fact that Route 202 was built caused more people to go through town," he said.

But the old railroad line along the Swift River from Bondsville and South Belchertown to Enfield was discontinued because of the Quabbin, and that had an impact on downstream towns.

"The reservoir was the start of the decline for manufacturing in Bondsville and South Belchertown," said Greene. "The railroad was more important at that time, obviously."

Greene speculated that the Quabbin kept growth out of central and western Massachusetts. "It's certainly allowed more growth in greater Boston than would have otherwise been possible," said Greene.

"If we hadn't sent the water to Boston, they would have moved out here where the water resources are," said Campbell. "It's better this way."

Rather than attracting development, Albertson said, the Quabbin has "protected that corner of Belchertown from being developed, so it's benefited the town greatly in that way. It adds to the quality of life."

While Albertson and Greene play down the economic effects of the Quabbin on Belchertown and the region, William Pula, superintendent of the Quabbin, said the activities surrounding the reservoir have a direct, multi-million dollar impact.

The Quabbin sells about $1 million in standing timber each year, said Pula. "That's all to local loggers, local companies and local sawmills," he said.

The MDC has 76 full-time employees with an annual payroll of approximately $2.6 million, said Clif Reed, the spokesman at Quabbin. The MDC purchases supplies such as fuel, hardware and construction materials, totaling between $800,000 and $1 million a year, most bought locally, Pula said.

The MDC also makes payments in lieu of taxes to towns for the land it owns. Belchertown receives about $127,600 a year; Pelham $72,900; and Ware $110,000.

The impact of tourist visits to the Quabbin is hard to gauge. An estimated 500,000 people pass through the park each year, with 60,000 stopping at the visitors center, but no statistics are kept as to local spending by tourists.

According to Campbell, who helped found the Quabbin Visitors Center in 1984, within six months of its opening, people from 14 foreign countries and many states had visited the center.

"When people living in the area have somebody visiting, they bring them to the Quabbin. It's a showplace," he said.

Fishing, fauna

Fishing, one of the few active recreational pursuits allowed at the Quabbin, draws anglers from all over the Northeast, according to Jim Lafley, a biologist at the Quabbin.

The big water - the largest body in southern New England - attracts fishermen from around the Northeast to try their luck for large lake trout and landlocked salmon. The Swift River, which runs through Belchertown and to Palmer from the Quabbin, is also an attraction for anglers.

Because the Swift's water comes out of the bottom of the Winsor Dam, Lafley said, it is colder in the summer than is typical in the area, and is a perfect habitat for trout.

According to Pula, the popularity of fishing seems to be diminishing. In the 1970s and 80s, he said, 60,000 fishermen visited the Quabbin each year. In 1998, just 35,000 tried their luck. He theorizes the drop is the result, in part, of a general decline in fishing.

The chance to see eagles and other rare animal species also draws visitors to the reservoir.

Bald eagles were reintroduced to Massachusetts at the Quabbin in 1982, 75 years after they were eliminated from the state by human expansion and pesticide use, said Dan Clark, conservation biologist for MDC.

"It's certainly a great piece of habitat for a great many species," said Clark. "It has an undeveloped character to it. It's an unbroken tract of wilderness unlike any other in the state."

Other rare species that have been sighted at the Quabbin include the common loon, the cerulean warbler, a song bird that migrates from South America, and the Acadian flycatcher. Moose, bear and other mammals are also Quabbin residents, Clark said.

Gone but no grudge

Even Swift River Valley natives who were displaced by the reservoir appreciate the Quabbin as it exists today.

"It's just a beautiful place to come visit," said Helen Towne, 74. She was 11 years old when her family moved from Enfield to Belchertown in 1939, as the waters of the manmade flood were rising. "I never miss the chance to drive through when I'm passing by," she said.

"The exchange wasn't that bad as far as beauty," said Harvey Dickinson, who lived in Greenwich for the first seven of his 76 years, and in Belchertown ever since. "The valley was a beautiful place, of course, full of lakes and streams. But we love it now; we enjoy what we have left," he said.

The people who live near the Quabbin, Campbell said, are interested in what he calls the "other" Quabbin - the historical, aesthetic and wilderness aspects of the reservoir and surrounding land. "We don't drink the water," he said, explaining the region's other interests in the Quabbin.

"This other Quabbin," said Campbell, "is so essential to future generations because there's no other place where you can sit by the water and not see water skiers, boats and things like that. People need this as much for their spiritual well-being as they need the drinking water for their physical well-being."

"A quiet moment at the Quabbin is a religious experience, or can be," said Campbell. "It's a spiritual thing."