Pine DuBois, with the Jones River Watershed Association, spoke to Kingston selectmen at their Tuesday, Sept. 26 meeting, showing them a video of black, stinky water coming into Silver Lake from a mile and a half long culvert bringing water from Monponsett Pond. The increased rainfall has caused the Halifax ponds to overflow their banks and water has been diverted from the ponds through the culvert that empties into Silver Lake. “We did reach out to the Plymouth County Water District,” she said, “… we knew they had just completed a water quality study of Silver Lake in 2020 – 2022.” She told the board that the technical study had just been released Sept. 26, and encouraged them to review it. “Basically, it says that Silver Lake is in the worst condition it has ever been in.” If this is its worst condition as of 2022, and this stinky black material is being introduced to Silver Lake, “there needs to be a better plan,” DuBois said. Her suspicion is that the black muck is from the swamp – “My hope is that’s the swamp, and not somebody’s new wastewater treatment system… Nevertheless, it is a crisis in Silver Lake.” DuBois also said the black muck might be coming from a break in the pipe, explaining that in 2016 when the lake level was down quite a bit – dry everywhere – still there was water flowing through the pipe. DuBois went on to say that over the past years the water coming from the pipe has been brown or orange, but never this black, and not with this smell. She spoke of various projects and grant- funding applications that are in process, “to get things going to get a better management plan,” and asked selectmen for their support.
“Kingston is affected by the management of Silver Lake. It’s 17% of our watershed that we don’t get anymore, so the Jones River is in a perennial annual drought … because Silver Lake doesn’t release to the Jones River anymore.” Silver Lake, the remnants of a glacial lake, is 80 feet deep at its deepest point, DuBois explained. Monponsett is 12 feet deep. She went on to tell of the importance of the Jones River, the largest river draining into Cape Cod Bay. “The problem with this is the way Brockton is managing it (the water from Silver Lake) currently affects three rivers and three bays, Narragansett Bay, Mass Bay, and Cape Cod Bay. Silver Lake is one of the 12 largest natural lakes in the state. We forget that because it has been trapped so long.” She said that the plan is out as an RFP (request for proposals) and hopes that by the end of the month she will know who the consultant will be and Kingston will be asked to weigh in on the project. Silver Lake and the Jones River are critical ecological resources that need to be protected and restored.
Silver Lake is a Great Pond and comes under the Great Pond Law. It’s protected by the Clean Water Act. “All kinds of laws are being broken today and we’re at this critical point because Monponsett Pond had so much cyanobacteria… finally DEP does their work on it and says to Brockton ‘You can take half as much water as you used to take from Monponsett Pond.’ So instead of 30 million gallons of water a day, they were diverting 13 or 14 million gallons a day from October to May. There’s a caveat in there that says if Monponsett Pond is flooding, then the DEP can approve a diversion … if the Central Plymouth County Water District Commission approves it. In 1964 when the state legislature allowed these diversions, they did the same thing at Stump Brook, used to be the Snakey River. Stump Brook is the outflow of Monponsett Pond, and they put a dam there that raised the water level a foot above natural. So when they did that, at that time, there were summer cottages around Monponsett Pond. Now there are permanent year-round homes. And those summer cottages with the pipes to the lake, you know, have now got septic systems. But when you flood it, all that nutrient goes into the pond. It creates heavy phosphorus, heavy nitrogen loading cyanobacteria. Those things get diverted into Silver Lake, along with invasive plants. That’s why we have very high nitrogen, very high phosphorus, and invasive plants in Silver Lake today.”
Jones River Watershed Association is working with the Town of Kingston, has been for decades, to clean up the water in the Jones River. “Mostly we started with stormwater, then the sewer, and now the dams. We took out two main stem dams. The fish are knocking on that door of the Brockton Dam. They want to get in. We put in a temporary fish ladder in 2019. The river herring actually go there. “This spring I lifted 2,700 eels into Silver Lake that we trapped in a little box down there. So we know the fish want to go and we know that both the eels and the river herring are pretty close to being called endangered species. We don’t want to see that happen. We want to see them recover. There’s a project going on right now with the division of Marine Fisheries, where they’re assessing how many eels are in Silver Lake. Eels are a very important species for us, especially with our wetlands around here. They love to eat mosquito larvae when they’re babies. It’s way easier to (let the eels) do it than with a backpack sprayer.”
“All I’m saying,” DuBois continued, “is that we’re going to need to call on the Town of Kingston pretty soon. The Conservation Commission and Jones River are jointly writing a grant to NOAA right now to do the fish ladder and the culvert removal. We think this is a great opportunity to work with the City of Brockton, an Environmental Justice Community. We want them to want this to happen. And that’s what the regional plan is all about, is trying to figure out, well, if this happens and there’s always flow to the Jones River, Brockton’s going to need additional supply. They’re not using Aquaria (a desalinization water plant on the Taunton River) now, even though it was built for them. But they don’t use it. So we need to have a say in satisfying the needs of that community as well as the regional communities so that we all have a sustainable future. And with the money that’s being poured out right now, both in order to have us spring back as well as to develop the economy, I think we cannot miss these opportunities.”
Town Administrator Keith Hickey spoke to five ARPA fund requests: the Council on Aging and the fire suppression system failures they’ve had over the past couple of years. Two requests came from the fire department. The board approved $45,045 to replace the HVAC units at the fire station. There was an additional cost of $30,978 to make additional repairs so the system is operating as it should. Fire Chief Mark Douglas was present and asked the board to approve the additional funds for that work. Also, Chief Douglas asked to have the Smith Lane HVAC system reviewed as it is at the end of its useful life. “It could last five years, it could last ten minutes, and the vendor recommended that it should be replaced at a cost of $37,437,” Hickey told selectmen. The Chief requested the additional cost. Hickey told selectmen that would leave a balance of just over $500,000 in ARPA funds.
Hickey reminded the board that during the coldest night of last year there was a fire suppression system break, causing significant damage to the selectmen’s office. They have since discovered a live suppression head in the IT server room, above the server. Luckily it has not gone off. Chief Douglas consulted with a fire suppression system engineer, and the recommendation is to move that nozzle to a safe location and modify the suppression system to eliminate the risk of damaging the server room, at a cost of $53,649. Selectmen approved the use of ARPA funds for those projects.
The upgrade of fiber optics in the Town House is another ARPA project request in the amount of $14,780 to purchase items needed for the improvements, rather than lease them through Comcast for $12,000 annually. The board approved the project.
Hickey told the board that the Council on Aging had a break in its fire suppression system and in order to greatly lessen the it happening again, they designed improvements for $58,500. Selectmen agreed.
Selectmen chairman Emberg made the following announcements:
• Financial assistance applications are available through the office of the Board of Selectmen.
• The Board of Health is offering flu clinics on Wednesday, Oct. 18, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Register by calling the health office at 781 – 585-0503. Registration is required.
• Special Town Meeting is Tuesday, Oct. 24, at the Kingston Intermediate School.
• Brush chipping day is Saturday, Oct. 21.
• The playground at Gray’s Beach is now open. Check it out!
• For those who would like to get involved in the community, please check the Kingston website, kingstonMA.gov for a complete list of vacancies, including a seat on the Kingston Affordable Housing Trust, that will assist in the creation and preservation of low and moderate-income housing. Interested persons can also reach out to the selectmen’s office
• Selectmen took a few minutes to congratulate their fellow board member Tyler Bouchard on the recent birth of his daughter.