Wannacomet gets approval for two new water tanks
HDC
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
The Wannacomet Water Company earned two Historic District Commission approvals for new water towers at 43 Polpis Road and behind the former softball field in 'Sconset at the HDC's Aug. 14 meeting.

Getting certificates of appropriateness from the commission for both towers as designed made Wannacomet Water Company Manager Bob Gardner happy, but his contentment came at a cost.

Three commissioners - Chairman Dirk Roggeveen, Diane Coombs and associate member Aaron Marcavitch - lobbied for and succeeded in getting Wannacomet to paint the word "Nantucket" in six-foot black lettering in Ariel Bold font on the north and south sides of the new Polpis Road tower, lettering that will cost $10,000 per side, according to Gardner.

The three commissioners argued that this elevated storage tank could stand a little more creativity than the fog-colored paint of the town's existing Washing Pond water tank.

"My idea is they actually should have a design competition to get input to address the issue of how water towers can become a work of art," said Roggeveen.

Roggeveen cited the fuel storage tanks in Quincy, Mass. painted bright colors along Rt. 93 on the way to Boston and water tanks around the state with the name of their towns painted on them as examples.

HDC members Linda Williams and John McLaughlin both protested, voting against the other three.

"It really was inane," said Williams. "I don't need to have somebody tell me I'm on Nantucket with a sign.

"John and myself did not have issues with the proposal - it's a water tower; it quacks like a water tower and acts like water tower and looks like a water tower. You can't make a water tower act like something else."

Roggeveen, associate member John Wagley and the Siasconset Civic Association tried to get 'Sconset's proposed elevated storage tank to quack like the Polpis storage tank with the word "Sconset" painted on it without an apostrophe before the S, but their arguments did not hold enough water to sway Marcavitch, Coombs and Valerie Norton from voting for this tower without lettering.

For his part, Gardner is just happy to have both water tanks approved.

"We're over the HDC and over the ZBA [Zoning Board of Appeals] and now it's time to move on," he said. "Next is submitting the package to the FAA[Federal Aviation Administration] and setting up meetings with the local carriers."

Gardner already has the green light from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife's Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program that the projects will not harm any endangered species, but he still has to meet with the Massachusetts Historical Commission and get that entity's blessing for the projects.

"We're moving forward because delays are money," he said. "Who can predict the price of steel? We're thinking by 2010 we'll be up and running. We're aiming for going out to bid in mid-to-late November."

The town water district's second tank, planned for 38 acres in the State Forest off Polpis Road is designed to hold nearly three million gallons. Standing around 94 feet high at an elevation of 70 feet, this second water tank is an elevated storage tank, meaning that its entire contents can be used rather than just the top portion of the water column, like the Washing Pond Road tank, to maintain water pressure throughout the town's system.

'Sconset's new tank will be 150 feet tall and will replace the existing and rapidly deteriorating 192,000-gallon standpipe water tower on New Street built in 1925. It provides ratepayers with just 57,000 usable gallons of water. The new tank will be a 400,000-gallon elevated storage tank,

with all of its capacity usable. I