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Date: 12/6/2022
EASTHAMPTON – On Nov. 30 the Easthampton Board of Public Works hosted its first workshop session to discuss upcoming water and sewer rate increases to keep up with increasing needs for water and sewer infrastructure upgrades throughout the city.
In a handout provided at the workshop, Tighe and Bond, the firm working as a consultant on the rate changes, detailed what the rate increases would look like through fiscal year 2025 (FY25). Based on the projections, the base fee for water would increase to $4.73 in FY24 and $4.96 in FY25, up from $4.50 in FY23. The usage rate, which is the cost per 100 cubic feet of water used, would increase to $3.41 in FY24 and $3.58 in FY25. On the sewer side, the base fee would increase from $9.75 in FY22 to $15.22 in FY25 while the usage rate would increase from $5.10 in FY22 to $7.96 in FY25.
Based on those increases, the projected increase for a single-family home using about 1,800 cubic feet of water per quarter would be an annual jump from $659.32 in FY22 to $913.18 in FY25. On the high end of water usage for a four-family home and using 7,200 cubic feet per quarter would see an annual jump of $440.30 over that same span.
Between all the capital projects that require funding, Michael Schrader, a principal engineer with Tighe and Bond, said the city is looking at $13 million in water capital projects and $45 million in wastewater capital projects over the next several years.
To begin the workshop, DPW Director Gregory Nuttleman detailed the city’s water and sewer systems.
The Nonotuck Well, which Nuttleman said provides 60 to 70 percent of the city’s water, will need some work done as well.
“We just had some pretty significant work on the pump over the last year. It’s a workhorse for us but it’s starting to show its age in a couple of different ways, where the automation there is very old and from the mid-90s,” he said.
Nuttleman explained one upcoming expenditure for the city is abandoning the Mt. Tom reservoir, citing several issues with the reservoir after the tank was taken offline in 2010.
“It was leaking from the roof with ground water, rainwater and bacteria was getting into the tank. We had to take the tank offline and things are operating fine without that. What we’d like to do in the next several years is get it properly abandoned and properly filled in,” Nuttleman said.
He added that the city needs to reach out to a consultant to discuss the best way to properly abandon the tank, as there are issues accessing it because it is built into the side of Mt. Tom.
When discussing the city’s wastewater infrastructure, Nuttleman said it consists of a wastewater treatment facility and 18 pump stations. He said the treatment facility was built in 1949 and was most recently upgraded in 1996. For the pump stations he said 37 percent of them are more than 85 years old and 91 percent are older than 35 years. On top of the facility and pump stations, Nuttleman said some of the pipes in the sewer system date back to the 1800s. Because of the age of the systems, he said projects to renovate and upgrade these systems are required.
One such project is an upcoming project to renovate Main Street in 2028.
“For that project we will need to fund any sanitary sewer or water infrastructure replacements. The state transportation improvement program will not fund any water sewer upgrades and replacements,” he said.
Nuttleman added that because the city increased water and sewer rates a minimal amount during the coronavirus pandemic, the city must “play catch up.”
“What we’re trying to do is starting to make some must needed investments in the city’s water and sewer infrastructure, these need to happen. Personally, I don’t know that I would have been comfortable asking people for money in June or July of 2021 saying, ‘we need more money,’ when the world was in such an uncertain place,” he said. “We’re just at a point now where we have to start getting on these projects.”
One resident in attendance suggested creating a multi-tier water and sewer rate system to take some of the burden off of residents and put more on businesses and the board agreed to take that into consideration as it moves forward, but Nuttleman said it may be difficult to do so and the city could face backlash from businesses.
As this was the first workshop meeting, the Board of Public Works is seeking feedback on the proposed changes and will host more workshop sessions in the future.