Double-digit hike for water hits July 1; sewerage rate up 5%

Residents are in for another year of double-digit water rate hikes as officials pay for a cleaner supply. 

Acton’s fee for new sewer hookups will also jump, primarily due to inflation, officials say.

“The community is already upset with what they perceive as an outrageous cost,” now-retired Public Works Director Alan Cathcart acknowledged shortly before the Public Works Commission approved the latter change. 

“It’s rough,” PWC member Sven Weber told The Acton Bridge, discussing the rate hearing.

New water and sewerage rates take effect July 1. 

• Water rates will increase 12.5%, hitting the average residential customer for an extra $108.34 over the next year.
• Sewerage rates will climb 5%, or $42.93 per year on average. 
• The sewer improvement fee — when new construction or renovation increases a property’s sewerage output — will spike nearly 50%, from $40.07 per gallon to $60. 

Public works brass say they need the hikes. They also hear concerns from business leaders like Acton Business Partnership President Tyler Spring.

Rising sewerage and electric costs will “certainly negatively impact” businesses trying to grow, Spring, a partner with the Omni Properties brokerage firm, told The Bridge. 

Water rate increases over time

2017: 4%
2018: 4%
2019: 5%
2020: 5%
2021: 10%
2022: 4%
2023: 12.5%
2024: 12.5%
2025: 12.5%
2026: 12.5%

Source: Public Works Commission minutes

Planned rate hikes

Water rate hikes historically hovered in the single digits. Town officials started a series of 12.5% increases in 2023. 

These changes are par for the course in the industry, Water and Sewer Superintendent Darin LaFalam said, as officials face mandates to strip dangerous PFAS chemicals out of public supplies. Plans for the next year include $5 million in PFAS improvements alone.

The sewerage rate change is the latest in a series of 5% increases that will continue until 2032, LaFalam told the PWC. 

Only about a third of Acton households are part of the town’s sewer network. The rest have their own systems. 

Acton’s wastewater treatment plant has gone nearly 20 years since its last upgrade, and LaFalam said there’s “work to do” — to the tune of roughly $10 million over the next several years.

Cathcart cautioned that sewer work will only maintain the status quo. Acton is up against its federal limit for how much wastewater it can process. 

Officials are in talks with the state about acquiring a treatment plant at the shuttered MCI-Acton prison. The site could boost capacity, but it might also take more town money to retrofit.

‘Not insubstantial’

The sewer improvement fee is separate from use rates and had stayed flat since 2013.

At present, LaFalam told The Bridge, someone building a one-bedroom home addition might pay $4,400. At $60 per gallon, that same project would incur a $6,600 charge. 

Wright Tavern Legacy Trust Chair Tom Wilson said the non-profit working to rehab the historic meeting space is facing an $88,000 fee. He expects to be able to pay that fee with a National Park Service grant. 

Because the tavern already filed its paperwork, Wilson anticipates avoiding the rate increase. 

Even so, he said, it’s a cost that could have “put the kibosh on what we’re trying to do,” if not for the federal grant.

Wilson agrees with the theory that the properties creating the need for higher town treatment capacity should shoulder the cost.

He also sits on the Economic Vitality Committee, however, and worries about the fee blocking small businesses’ plans. 

PFAS pain

Rate decisions followed the release of the town’s latest annual water quality report. 

Harmful chemicals — including lead, copper, and bromate — remain below regulatory limits. 

On PFAS, LaFalam said “we’re tap-dancing around” a federal limit of four parts per trillion in the water supply from Acton’s Hugh Cargill and Second Division wells. 

Federal regulators recently proposed giving water providers until 2031 to bring their supplies into compliance.