Water infrastructure projects don’t fail because communities don’t need water. They fail because the regulatory landscape is complex, multi-layered, and easy to get stuck in. When a Massachusetts municipal utility needed help navigating exactly that kind of complexity, they turned to Shepherd Strategies.
The Result
A renewed state Water Management Act Permit — and a community one step closer to a secure, long-term water supply.
Our client serves a Massachusetts community that has grown by more than 55% over the past fifty years — and the growth isn’t slowing. New residential developments, commercial expansion, and a new intermunicipal water supply agreement with a neighboring community have all added pressure to a municipal water system already operating near its limits.
The numbers tell the story clearly. All of the utility’s existing wells sit in subbasins with groundwater depletion levels that trigger mandatory outdoor water use restrictions during peak summer months — precisely when demand is highest. State environmental findings confirm that more growth is expected in the coming years.
The solution the utility had been pursuing for more than two decades: development of a new bedrock well source on land the utility has owned since the 1970s — acquired specifically for drinking water purposes — capable of producing between 200,000 and 550,000 gallons of water per day.
Good projects with clear community need don’t automatically move forward. This project sat at the intersection of multiple overlapping regulatory frameworks, each with its own requirements, timelines, and stakeholder interests:
Governs how much water municipalities can withdraw, from which sources, and under what conservation conditions — requiring detailed permitting, mitigation planning, and ongoing compliance reporting.
Protects land held for conservation purposes from being converted to other uses — a potential complication given that portions of the project area carry conservation designations.
Governs how certain publicly funded recreational lands can be used, requiring careful documentation and approvals for conversions to other uses where applicable.
A prior land conversion two decades earlier brought replacement-land obligations and the need to address National Park Service guidance on permissible use.
Navigating any one of these frameworks is manageable. Navigating all of them simultaneously — while making the affirmative case that the project is legally permissible under each — required exactly the kind of multi-level regulatory expertise that Shepherd Strategies provides.
Shepherd Strategies engaged with the utility to assess the full regulatory picture, identify the applicable legal frameworks, and determine the most viable path forward.
The core of that work was making the legal and policy case that the project does not trigger Article 97 disposition requirements or require NPS conversion approval — because the land was acquired for water supply purposes and has never changed from that purpose. That argument required more than legal analysis. It required clear, stakeholder-ready communication materials that could hold up in state reviews, agency conversations, and public processes.
Shepherd prepared detailed, stakeholder-ready materials covering the community’s population growth and water demand trajectory, the history and legal status of the project parcels, the applicable federal and state regulatory frameworks, and the project’s minimal and restorable surface impact.
Those materials supported the utility through the review process that culminated in the state issuing a renewed Water Management Act Permit — a concrete, documented outcome that opens the door to the next phase of project development.
A key regulatory milestone for the community’s long-term water supply plans.
The renewed permit authorizes the utility to withdraw water from its sources within the applicable river basin, including a newly added well source, through 2034. It reflects the state’s acceptance of the utility’s mitigation plan, conservation commitments, and the overall regulatory case the team had built.
For the new source development specifically, the permit renewal clears a critical step in the process. Once the remaining approvals are in place, the project moves into a 30-to-36 month implementation timeline — design and permitting, construction and infrastructure installation, and restoration — with a projected completion that would increase the utility’s maximum-day production capacity significantly and meet projected demand through 2040.
That additional capacity could comfortably supply the daily water needs of thousands of additional residents — supporting residential growth, commercial development, and long-term community resilience.
This utility’s situation is not unique. Roughly 72.6% of Massachusetts is currently experiencing abnormally dry conditions or active drought. Communities across the state are confronting the same structural tension: growing demand, tightening environmental regulations, and infrastructure investment requirements that can run into the tens of millions of dollars.
Water constraints are already causing municipalities to reject or stall housing projects, limiting high-tech development, and putting pressure on agricultural and recreational sectors. The communities positioned to grow — economically and residentially — will be the ones that have done the hard work of building water supply capacity now.
Shepherd Strategies helps communities and utilities do exactly that: assess the regulatory landscape, identify the viable path, and prepare the stakeholder case that moves critical infrastructure projects forward.
