WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town's Agricultural Commission is considering ways to expand its reach to protect farming in a town that once boasted 138 working farms.

 

That number comes from the Williamstown Historical Museum, which was cited in a 2020 study by environmental planning students at Williams College.

 

As of 2020, that number was down to 16 active farms and stables, and, statewide, Massachusetts saw 113,000 acres of farmland lost between 1997 and 2022, Ag Commission Chair Sarah Gardner told the Select Board last week.

 

To stem that tide, the commonwealth created the Farmland Action Plan and passed legislation that allows municipal ag commissions to purchase or lease land or water rights for the purpose of preserving agricultural land.

 

"We can now acquire and own farmland," Gardner told the board. "And we can also own land and lease land to farmers. And we can have an agriculture preservation fund, which is sort of like a conservation fund. We can have a pot of money to do that, which we'd have to get from town through the budget process or some other means."

 

Gardner was at Town Hall last Monday to report to the Select Board on the Ag Commission's current activities as part of an initiative by Select Board Chair Stephanie Boyd to educate her panel and daylight the activities of other boards and committees in town.

 

Gardner talked about the background of the Ag Commission, which she called, "perhaps the least visible of all town commissions."

 

The commission, which includes farmers and Gardner, an environmental studies professor at Williams, has been around since the early part of this century.

 

Much of its work to date has revolved around advocating for agriculture and providing a support system for local farmers.

 

"It's important to have the Agricultural Commission there because we used to have other forms of support for farms," Gardner said. "We used to have the Grange, we had local organizations of farmers, and farmers had a voice in town. There used to be an agricultural extension service at UMass, and there was an extension worker, or several, in every county who checked in with farmers regularly. In the Berkshires, we had a north one and a south one. They would tell farmers about new programs and services. That is long gone.

 

"There are very few structures in place to support farms. The Ag Comm is kind of the last thing standing."

 

In addition to advocacy and promotion — including running an annual Open Farm Day that started in 2024 — the Ag Commission also helps to mediate disputes that may arise between farmers and neighbors.

 

"And we weigh in on a lot of issues," Gardner said. "We often write letters in support of farmers when they apply for state grants. We write letters when farmers are trying to get into the APR, the Agricultural Preservation Restriction Program. We helped support Galusha Farm in their most recent APR.

 

"We spent two years, along with Stephanie [Boyd, then a member of the Planning Board], trying to support a marijuana growing bylaw that we thought would help farmers."

 

And, as of last year, the local agricultural commissions across the commonwealth have a whole new set of powers, Gardner said.

 

Although she did not bring a specific request for funding to support any future exercise of those powers, Gardner said the state's Farmland Action Plan calls on local ag commissions to "be on top of Chapter land" and have funds in place so commissioners can exercise a municipality's "right of first refusal" when land goes on the market.

 

A few years ago, Williamstown went through the right of first refusal process when 10 acres of land on Oblong Road was coming out of the commonwealth's Chapter 61 protection program.

 

"It would be very helpful to think about partnerships to try to make that happen, to get ready for that," Gardner said. "Because there are over 1,000 acres of farmland in this town that are not protected."

 

The Ag Commission is scheduled to meet on Wednesday at town hall at 6 p.m., though the agenda posted on the town's website as of Monday morning listed no specific items for discussion.

 

While Gardner characterized the Ag Commission as one of the town's "least visible," a body that was highly visible last spring also updated the Select Board at its Oct. 20 meeting.

 

Hugh Daley and Russell Howard, who represent the town on the four-person Hoosac Water Quality District Board of Commissioners, joined the meeting to talk about current activities at the district, including the status of its composting program.

 

That program came under scrutiny last year when the HWQD proposed a fiscal year 2026 budget that included revenue from a plan to take in sludge from outside the district and add it to the district's existing composting plan.

 

A number of residents raised concerns about expanding the composting program given the presence of polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, the so-called "forever chemicals" that have been linked to cancer. Ultimately, the district pulled back on the plan to take in "outside" sludge, but it continues to operate its composter.

 

"At our facility … the compost, traditionally, was sold to places that would then package it and it would be applied to gardens and trees and that sort of thing," Daley told the Select Board. "It was never food, as far as I know. Land application in this context always meant agricultural in the sense of growing trees or flowers or something like that."

 

PFAS continue to be a concern for the district and its commissioners, Daley said. And, going forward, the district, which operates a water treatment plant in Williamstown that also takes sewage from North Adams and Clarksburg, likely will make a change in how compost is used.

 

"The primary change between this year's thought process and next year's is that, most likely, we'll continue to compost but instead of selling it to somebody who might put it in a bag for a mulch process for someone's yard, it most likely will go to a landfill," Daley said.

 

"There are two uses for our compost in a landfill. One is it becomes just another layer of garbage in the landfill. The other is for the thing they call ground cover. In between layers of garbage, they like to have organic material. So it would be serving a purpose within the landfill, but it still would be in the confines of a landfill."

 

Daley said that changes in how the district disposes of PFAS-contaminated sludge will cost residents in the member municipalities more money. But the district is trying to find a solution that "doesn't break the bank."

 

"North Adams and Williamstown have been notified for the last eight to 10 years that these increases are coming," HWQD manager Brad Furlon told the board. "By the time we go to shipping out sludge disposal, it's going to be in the range of three-quarters of a million dollars. So, yes, the talks have been with North Adams and Williamstown's Finance Committee as well."

 

Residents of Clarksburg, which has never chosen to put a representative on the HWQD board, are billed through the City of North Adams.