I grew up understanding two things about the water that I drank: it is some of the best tastings in the country and how it became a water source is a very sad story. The Nipmuc Native Americans used the word “Quabbin,” which means the meeting of many waters, to refer to the land that became the Quabbin Reservoir. This wide valley with its low-slung hills serves as a natural collection point for the streams that form the Swift River, whose water eventually empties into Long Island Sound. I remember my parents telling me that we were fortunate to have such clean, good tasting water. I did not fully appreciate this until I was older and began to travel outside of my little town. It was in restaurants, hotels, and my relatives’ houses that I started to see how lucky I was. In other places, I could plainly taste chlorine or metal. I avoided drinking water when traveling, ordering milk or juice at restaurants and only having water when it was very hot or very cold which seemed to diminish its taste. I could smell the chemicals on my skin after I showered, it was unavoidable. As I began to understand the quality of my hometown water, I also began to understand the enormous cost of bringing that water to my home.
The Quabbin Reservoir Mass.gov
The Quabbin Reservoir was integral to my adolescence as my family often drove to the visitors’ center (the old Enfield Town Hall) where we would walk along the top of the dam that holds back the reservoir’s billions of gallons of water. On one side, there is a beautiful view of green, forested hills and blue water, and on the other, a steep hill of dirt that reinforces the dam. Signs are posted that say, “No Swimming” and “No Fishing” and a rugged stone shoreline keeps visitors away from the precious water source that hydrates over three million people, mostly in Boston, ninety miles away. That is not to say that I never have had any interaction with this water. I have canoed the Swift River many times. The Swift River and its tributaries form the Quabbin Reservoir. The part of the Swift, which anglers and canoeists use, is only the part that is released from the bottom of the dam, which reaches a depth of 150’. On a sunny 90-degree day, the water is still too frigid to wade in for more than a few minutes, but the clarity allows you to see to the sandy bottom along with 24-inch catfish over ten feet below you. The Swift River is where I learned to kayak, canoe, and properly pick up snapping turtles.
But there is tragedy associated with the Quabbin Reservoir’s creation. When I was seven, I was given a picture book called “Letting Swift River Go” by Jane Yolen. This is when I started to learn the reality behind such an amazing, man-made body of water, one of the largest in New England. In the damming of the Swift River, the towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott were demolished. These towns had a population of 2,500 people. Yolen’s picture book tells the story of a young girl, Sally Jane, who lived in one of these bustling towns and how her whole life changed when the state government decided that all residents must leave the area. Going from having picnics in the graveyard to catching fireflies during sleepovers, Sally Jane watched as adults tore down everything. Men dismantled the roads, cut the trees, moved or demolished the houses, and even dug up and reinterred the white people’s graves into a new cemetery.
Brick by brick, board by board, the towns that had stood for two hundred years holding factories, schools, houses, and businesses, became a desolate land. Their residents were paid a pittance for their land. The communities scattered to the wind, losing their homes and the history they once had. When hiking today through the park surrounding the reservoir, I have come across old stone walls, steps to non-existent homes, glass bottles from old dairies, and even one gravesite, missed by the workers. Builders came and built the dam which allowed the Swift River to flood the area, and now 80 years later, the Quabbin is seen as a success.
The Quabbin holds 412 billion gallons of water and is the largest man-made reservoir in the world that is used only as a water supply. It was created for the large city of Boston with water being delivered solely through gravity-fed aqueducts and requiring minimal filtration and chemicals. It took from 1927 to 1939 to build the dam. Water did not begin flowing from the Quabbin until 1941. This public works project was a huge undertaking, especially when considering the dis-establishment of four communities and the forced human migration that occurred during this period. It should also be noted that even today this water does not serve the community it tore apart, most of the water still goes to Boston. I live in one of the three small towns that Quabbin water is sent to locally.
The Quabbin before, during, and after construction; Greenfield Recorder
Where there was once factories and bustling towns, there is now wilderness. The reservoir and its surrounding park encompass 81,000 acres, and the reservoir, itself, is 18 miles long. The land is home to many different types of animals, including moose, deer, fox, otter, beaver, coyote, fisher, along with rainbow and brook trout, and many bird species. It even helped revitalize the nation’s bald eagle numbers, allowing the birds to be taken off the Federal Endangered Species List in 2007. “There’s this accidental wilderness we’ve created,” Cliff Read, the Quabbin’s supervisor of interpretive services for the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, told the Daily Hampshire Gazette. With each passing year, the memories of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott become fewer and fewer. It becomes easier for people to forget the price of such a success.
This monumental dam building was happening all over the U.S. in the early 20th century. As large cities needed reliable sources of clean water, the question became how to bring water to these communities? Communities, such as New York City, used an extensive aqueduct system to bring in freshwater. In the case of New York City, brick-lined tunnels were built underground cutting through people’s land. This water did not serve these people, but they were the ones that had to deal with workers tearing apart their farms with no say of their own.
Another example would be the Ogden River Project in Utah. In the early 1900s, Ogden, along with Salt Lake City, was running out of water. Farmers were stealing water from each other in an area where the climate is naturally dry during the summer, and water comes from the melting winter snowpack, where the average snowfall is 500 inches by the end of the season. The Ogden River Project was tasked with building the Pineview Dam. In 1933, the federal government’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) removed everything from the reserved site for the reservoir. After the removal of buildings, fencing, pipe, and vegetation, the Ogden River was impounded to flood the site in 1937. This reservoir has continued to have issues with overflow and proper distribution of water.
These acts were made possible because of the eminent domain law, the right by the government to use private property for public use as long as proper compensation was given to the landowners. At the turn of the century, these laws were much looser and the residents in towns such as Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott were only given money for their land not what they lost along with the land such as houses, livestock, and any other material goods. It is hard to think of something like this happening in today’s world. But the discussion is still ongoing.
In 2005, a court ruling in Kelo vs. New London found that the city of New London, Connecticut, was allowed to take private property and sell it for private development. This case was tried under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which says a person cannot be denied life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Public outcry since this controversial ruling has been huge as more and more cases are files where people are being forced out of their homes under the auspices of eminent domain.
These issues are easy to ignore if they do not directly affect you, so the question becomes where to draw the line in future cases. It cannot be argued that no private land can ever be taken through eminent domain because sometimes the benefit to society greatly outweighs the cost. For instance, the lives of 2,500 people were changed so that over three million people have clean water every day in Boston. Without this sacrifice, the city of Boston may have failed. But those 2,500 people should have received adequate compensation for their sacrifice. They should have received enough money to be made “whole.” This type of project would likely not happen today in the United States. There would be too many environmental concerns, and people would not meekly surrender their homes to the government. However, it is easy to forget these lessons as voices fade and the actions of the past are forgiven just because they are in the past.
I remember being a six-year-old girl standing on the wall at the top of the Quabbin’s dam. My father was holding me and he said, “Look down, do you see the tracks?” And yes, far below me going into the dark abyss of the reservoir were train tracks. These are the same train tracks that carried the trains that six-year-old Sally Jane use to hear pass by her window at night. And it reminds me that she, like the rest of her community, had to let the Swift River go so Boston could have water.