Towns surrounding the Quabbin Reservoir protect the water for 2.7 million people in Eastern Mass. They're getting financially starved in the process.
Sponsored by The Boston Foundation The Best of CommonWealth Beacon OPINION The Quabbin Reservoir. (Photo via Creative Commons/Wikimedia by David Pinter) Towns surrounding the Quabbin Reservoir protect the water for 2.7 million people in Eastern Mass. They're getting financially starved in the process. August 2, 2026 By Matteo Pangallo For nearly a century, residents in the towns around the Quabbin Reservoir have faithfully upheld one of our Commonwealth’s most profound collective commitments: safeguarding clean, reliable water for Eastern Massachusetts. Although residents of those towns are, ironically, not given access to the water they protect and provide to some 2.7 million fellow Massachusetts residents, they have done this responsibly and at tremendous cost. Now, that cost has become unsustainable. Take the town of Shutesbury, a Massachusetts community of 1,800 people on the western shore of Quabbin. One of every three acres in the town is held by the Commonwealth to prot...