Opinion: Does Dartmouth have enough drinking water?

To the Editor: Does Dartmouth have enough drinking water?

With the 40B Apartment Developments in construction, approved or about to be that’s over 800 new 40B apartments that will place demands on our water and sewer infrastructure. This does not include new commercial apartment projects in construction or in the planning stage.

With the town of Dartmouth buying some of our public drinking water from the city of New Bedford. The cost of which keeps increasing. What happens if New Bedford shuts us off due to long term drought or another crisis? The New Bedford connection should only be used in short term basis not standard operating procedure in my opinion.

Adding drinking well capacity is not as easy as fixing the sewer capacity issues. The water quality committee is a great step to protect existing water sheds and steps to protect them but the scope does not cover supply issues from my understanding of their scope.

Does Dartmouth have a plan to be independent with the future public drinking water demands? Thanks for reading.

Tom Babington