City water rates going up to pay for new plant
WOONSOCKET – To pay for a new $57 million water treatment plant, the Woonsocket Water Department is asking the Public Utilities Commission for a series of five rate hikes that would increase the typical customer’s water bill about 47 percent through 2023, or $259.
The first of the proposed hikes – 9.73 percent, or an added $45 – would take effect on Oct. 11, although the PUC says it may need more time to evaluate the request and, ultimately, could modify the rates sought by the WWD.
The PUC routinely seeks public comment on requests for hikes in utility rates, but the application is so recent the regulatory agency has not yet scheduled any hearings. Through its lawyers at Adler Pollock & Sheehan, the WWD just filed the request on Sept. 11. Details are outlined in 194 pages of documents, including testimony in support of the rate hike from engineering, accounting and financial consultants associated with the ongoing construction of the new water
treatment plant on Jillson Avenue.
Those documents are available for perusal at the PUC’s headquarters, 89 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, or online at http://www.ripuc.org/ eventsaction/ docket/ 4879page. html. The agency says it will publish a notice of hearing dates when they are scheduled.
According to the application, the first of the rate hikes is designed to raise $799,000, bringing the WWD’s operating revenues to roughly $9 million. The result on a typical residential customer who lives in the city would be a rate increase of 9.73 percent, but the proposal calls for different rates for various classes of customers.
The city also sells water to Bellingham, Blackstone, North Smithfield and Cumberland. Residential users in those towns would see their rates increase 13.34, or about
$52, in the first phase of the rate hike, according to papers on file at the PUC
The WWD defines the typical residential customer as one that consumes 8,000 cubic feet of water per year, or about 165 gallons per day.
If the proposal is approved, additional rate hikes would take effect on Jan. 1 for four years in a row, beginning in 2020. According to the proposed rate schedule, these hikes would be 4.99 percent; 6.77 percent; 13.64 percent; and 11.81 percent.
The WWD’s application says the last four rate hikes would be across-the-board, affecting all classes of customers. But for the typical residential customer, they would result in additional annual payments of $25, $36, $77 and $76.
The proposed rate hikes are the latest evidence that the cost of replacing the antiquated Hamman Water Treatment Plant on Manville Road is finally trickling down to
ratepayers – as officials have always warned they would.
City Engineer John Pratt provided testimony in support of the new plant that summarizes the genesis of the replacement for the facility. He explained that the existing plant was built in 1962 and is no longer suitable for upgrades to operate in compliance with water-quality and anti-pollution regulations promulgated by the state Department of Environmental Management.
The engineering firm, Camp, Dresser & McKee, evaluated the plant for structural integrity in 1994 and 2004 and determined that is becoming “increasingly exposed to the failure of a major treatment component and the resulting inability to meet water quality and water volume requirements,” Pratt testified.
Pratt said the plant also employs a type of technology that requires it to dump a sludgy material known as filter backwash into the Blackstone River. Because the material
creates an unhealthy habitat for fish and other creatures that depend on the river, the city has been under orders from DEM to end the practice of discharging filter backwash into the Blackstone.
“In particular, RIDEM has certain regulatory requirements, related to the discharge of filter backwash into the Blackstone River, that cannot be met at the existing location without substantial funding of infrastructure for pretreatment and attenuation,” Pratt testified. “Also, there are physical constraints at our existing site that will not accommodate either the construction of a new plant or the construction of facilities necessary to comply with the RIDEM requirements.”
All of these concerns have “forced WWD to confront the difficult decision to hire a company” to replace the existing plant, he said.
After a lengthy procurement process, the City Council awarded a $56.8 million contract to a global engineering partnership for the job last July. AECOM Technical Services and Suez Water Inc. formed a third company – Wooonsocket Water LLC – which was hired to design, built and operate the new plant for 20 years.
Site preparation for the facility has been under way for several months on a 20-acre parcel off Jillson Avenue. The city’s contract with Woonsocket Water LLC calls for the company to build a fully operational water treatment plant on the land by Dec. 31, 2020.
The city intends to pay for the project, in part, by floating a series of bonds through the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank, according to Maureen Gurghigian, the managing director of Hilltop Securities in Lincoln. Gurghigian, who has been assisting the city in assembling a financing package for the project, also provided testimony to the PUC in support of the rate hikes.