Page 11 - BusinessWest February 19, 2024

“There are plenty of people who know that their water comes from the Quabbin, but far fewer who really know how the Quabbin came to be.”
enced by all those who lived through the demise of the Quabbin towns during talks about her book, more than 40 of them, over the past year or so.
“It was wonderful to speak locally, to people who know a lot about the Quabbin and live near the Quabbin, but it was also good to speak in Eastern Massachusetts towns where the story is less well-known,” she said. “There are plenty of people who know that their water comes from the Quabbin, but far fewer who really know how the Quabbin came to be.”
Through her talks, she has also made people aware of legislation, now in joint committee, that would, among other things, establish a Quabbin host-commu- nity fund through a 5-cent levy on every 1,000 gallons of water drawn from the reservoir.
“It’s pretty modest — it would only raise about $3.5 million a year,” she said. “But those funds could be used by the towns around the Quabbin for infrastructure and other capital improvements.”
The Loss Column
Palladino wasn’t at the farewell ball in 1938, obviously. But in some ways, she feels like she was.
Through her research, she has come to understand, as perhaps few can, what it was like to be at Enfield Town Hall when the clock struck midnight, and this wasn’t actually a town anymore.
It was part of a valley that would, over the next several years, be flooded with more than 400 billion gallons of water.
That ball, and the many extreme forms of loss experienced by those who were there — and all those who lived in the Quabbin
Elena Palladino wants everyone who visits the Quabbin — or ever drinks its water — to contemplate the loss and sacrifice involved in its creation.
towns — is what she thinks about when she visits the reservoir. And she implores all those who visit or even drink the water to
do the same. BW
AT LEAST THERE’S THE REST OF THE DAY.
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