The board of the Metropolitan District Commission, the nonprofit municipal corporation that supplies water to residents in and around the capital region, voted Monday to adopt a budget raising water-use charges by 13.43 percent for the coming year.
The spending plan, which will go into effect Jan. 1, 2020, boosts rates from $3.50 to $3.97 per hundred cubic feet of water, which is equivalent to 748 gallons. In addition, the agency increased its sewer service charge from $6 to $7 per month, which applies only to its eight core member municipalities.
In a statement released Tuesday, the MDC attributed the comparatively sharp increase to a $2.5 billion, government-mandated infrastructure improvement project and a simultaneous dip in regional water consumption.
“The water rate increase in the 2020 budget was unavoidable, in large part due to decreased revenues from lower water use and sales,” officials said.
By the MDC’s estimates, water sales have fallen on average by approximately 3 percent per year — enough to dent earnings but not generate any meaningful savings.
The utility has dialed back distribution to about 50 million gallons of water per day, but even that has not been enough to offset the effects of slumping industrial use, new water-saving technology, and softening demand from households, which in general use less water today than they did 20 or 30 years ago.
The commission is also absorbing costs associated with the Clean Water Project, which aims to reduce the flow of untreated sewage and storm water into natural waterways.
The MDC supplies water and wastewater services to eight member communities — Bloomfield, East Hartford, Hartford, Newington, Rocky Hill, West Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor — and delivers drinking water to a portion of residents in East Granby, Farmington, Glastonbury, and South Windsor, which are considered non-member towns.
The utility has faced criticism in recent years for the severity of its rate hikes, even as it slashes support for conservation efforts such as Riverfront Recapture, which manages and maintains parks along the Connecticut River in Hartford and East Hartford. The most persistent complaints have come from low-income customers, who say they can’t keep pace with the annual increases and are being priced out of their neighborhoods.
Agency officials acknowledged the frustration this week but pointed out that the MDC, like other water suppliers in Connecticut, has been forced to do more with less.
“Providing potable drinking water to over 400,000 people does not happen by accident, but rather through the hard work and dedication of an employee base that has gone from over 700 people to under 500 in the last 10 years,” the commission’s statement read. “We look forward to working with the legislative delegation and municipal officials from the member and non-member towns to explore additional revenue streams.”
