North Smithfield Dispute !

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

                                                        P R E S S  R E L E A S E 

Town of North Smithfield, Rhode Island Town Council 
The North Smithfield Town Council today (tue) [unanimously] passed a resolution authorizing the Town Solicitor to demand arbitration to resolve various disputes under its wastewater disposal service contract with the City of Woonsocket. 
For almost forty years, the Town has disposed of its wastewater at a treatment and collection facility owned and operated by Woonsocket pursuant to a wastewater disposal service contract with the City.  The Massachusetts towns of Blackstone and Bellingham have entered into similar contracts with Woonsocket. 
The Resolution passed by the Council today claims that Woonsocket breached the contract “with full knowledge that the Town has no practical option but to continue to utilize the Woonsocket facility.”  According to Town Council President Robert Paul Boucher, “the Town has relied upon Woonsocket’s legal and equitable duty to treat the Town fairly and equitably as its partner, yet the City has abused its effective monopoly power.” 
The Resolution provides that Woonsocket breached its contract with the Town by, among other things, failing to create an official board for the purpose of adopting policies and programs with respect to the Facility and “unilaterally” attempting to reduce the total flow capacity allocated to the Town (from 3 million to 1.9 million gallons per day), while at the same time “imposing onerous new financial terms.”  It goes on to claim that Woonsocket attempted to impose an “arbitrary” host fee which bore no relation to the actual cost of operating the facility, and then when the Town would not agree, attempted to terminate the Contract, effective as of November 1, 2016. 
The Town Council has authorized the Town Solicitor to demand arbitration under the contract so that Woonsocket meets its legal and equitable obligations to the Town and signs a new contract which apportions costs in an equitable manner, and to ensure that the Town is able to continue to use the Woonsocket facility under equitable terms during the dispute.