Town Sewer Rates Go Up Starting In November
The November bills going out next week to Plainville’s 6,100 municipal sewer accounts will have a 3.5 percent increase, the result of a rate hike approved Oct. 1 by the town council.
The increase is less than the initial 4.8 percent hike the town was considering. Town Manager Robert Lee said the lower increase was possible because the town had $185,000 more in sewer revenue than anticipated this year, as well as a later start in debt payments for a $15.7 million water treatment plant upgrade.
Annual 4.8 percent rate increases began in 2014 on the recommendation of the town’s consultant for the upgrade. Regular, smaller increases would let the town build up an adequate fund balance to set aside three months operating costs and have money available for unanticipated expenses for the new facility.
The new rates are as follows:
users: New charge of $494.25, up from the current charge of $478.92.
Average residential user: new charge is $55.79 per 1,000 cubic feet of wastewater. The current rate is $53.90.
Low-volume users: About $16.61 more per year, from $386.24 to $402.86.
All revenue from sewer rates is used to finance operation and maintenance of the new facility.
A groundbreaking ceremony at the treatment plant Oct. 9 signaled the start of the three-year project, required to modernize the facility and bring it into compliance with new, stricter water quality regulations for phosphorus removal.
The work is required in order to remove phosphorus from wastewater. Phosphorus can cause an overgrowth of harmful algae in watersheds and oceans.
Plainville is among the first wave of municipal water treatment plants in Connecticut to deal with the stricter removal standards. Eventually, all water treatment plants in the state will have to comply with the stricter rules. Improvements will be done once current state-issued operating permits are granted.
In January, a tiny fraction of the town’s voters — 224 of 11,598 eligible voters — approved the project, in a 193-31 vote.
That gave a go-ahead to proposed im- provements to the facility, which processes 2 million gallons of wastewater a day and discharges clean effluent into the Pequabuck River, a tributary of the Farmington River.
Plainville would have faced fines and other penalties if voters had rejected the project. It would have the hurt town’s chances of getting $6.5 million worth of state reimbursements for the project and access to a 2 percent interest rate on a state loan to finance the balance of the job.
The upgrades will include improved phosphorus removal; new sewage sludge processing equipment; relocating some parts of the facility now in flood zones to higher ground; new computer-run equipment control and plant security systems; and new devices to analyze phosphorus and nitrogen levels to improve removal efficiency.