Advocates speak against MDC’s proposal for a special water rate

Discount would apply only to Bloomfield’s Niagara bottling company

HARTFORD — Opponents of a plan that would offer a discount to the area’s largest water customer, Niagara bottling company, packed a public hearing Monday night to oppose the plan under consideration by the Metropolitan District Commission.

Almost 100 people filled the standingroom-only meeting room at the utility’s training center in the South Meadows, speaking overwhelmingly in opposition to the plan during the MDC’s formal public feedback hearing on the proposal.

The proposed economic development rate would offer discounted rates at certain thresholds to major water customers in what MDC officials have said is an attempt to draw more large users to the area and lower rates for residential customers. But opponents have slammed the proposal, saying it undermines water conservation efforts across the state and unfairly hands a large corporation a break.

“Our concerns are about both incentivizing the sale of a precious natural resource — water — and also the creation of a billion more plastic bottles at a time when our oceans and waterways already are choked by them,” said Tollie Miller, a founding member of environmental advocacy group Save our Waters CT.

For now, the Niagara company with its Bloomfield plans is the only customer to meet the criteria for the discount.

Under the proposal, Niagara would get a discounted rate as it increases water usage from its current 600,000 gallons per day up to a 20 percent discount should the company reach its full capacity of 1.8 million gallons per day. By comparison, Coca Cola in East Hartford consumes less than one-third of that amount per day.

MDC leaders insist attracting more large-volume customers to the region would bring much-needed revenue that could help, over time, reduce the rates residential customers pay. Several civic leaders from Hartford spoke out in support of that plan, arguing the utility must do anything and everything it can to support the poor or fixed-income customers in the area already struggling to afford water rates.

But opponents contend the plan “flies in the face” of water conservation efforts to encourage residential users to dial back their water use while proposing to incen

tivize a large company to actually increase its usage purely for financial reasons.

“The MDC is wasting our money by trying to increase water sales,” said Lori Brown, executive director of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters. “The model should be based on conservation and should charge higher rates for super users … that doesn’t make sense.”

The push back follows the intense opposition to almost 14 percent rate increases last year at the regional utility that provides water and sewer service to Bloomfield, East Hartford, Hartford, Newington, Rocky Hill, West Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor.

The Committee on MDC Government will consider Wednesday afternoon whether to recommend the economic development rate to the full board, which is expected to consider the rate when it meets on March 2.