“06880” reader Marc Lemcke lives across from Aquarion’s North Avenue water tanks. He keeps a close watch on the utility. He writes:
Did you know that our water provider is being sold again?
It’s a big deal, one that defies logic. Eversource’s shareholders are celebrating — and we should be worried about our water supply in the years to come. Our water bills will soon double, and likely rise from there.
But you can do something. You can join the public comment session of the state’s regulator Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) on June 25, and ask the regulator and our state representatives for a better deal.
In July 2017, Westport’s water provider, Aquarion, applied for a permit to replace the small water tank on North Avenue with 2 significantly larger ones.
During a presentation to our Planning & Zoning Commission, Eversource — our energy provider — announced it had acquired the water company for $1.7 billion.
Together, these 2 firms are by far Westport’s largest taxpayers. They had outsized influence — and wielded it.
In 2025, for the fourth time in about 20 years, Aquarion is being sold. This time it is to publicly owned South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority (RWA) for $2.4 billion.
PURA has invited public comments on June 25 (register here), as it must approve the deal. There may be little public comment, but the deal’s importance should not be overlooked by Westport residents. Here’s why:
Water matters more to Westport than most towns. Eversource/ Aquarion is Westport’s biggest taxpayer; Aquarion as a standalone entity is in the top 10.
While Aquarion’s facilities generate significant tax revenue, town leaders have often looked the other way on issues such as PFAS contamination, lead pipe risks, and concerns about fire protection gaps.
With the town soon to become one of more than 60 municipal owners of Aquarion, this cozy relationship must be redefined. Taxes paid by Aquarion will not increase any more, and this will potentially impact Westport’s credit rating over time.
On the bright side, the critical issues of water infrastructure will now be discussed more openly.
We might see a test soon. A judge has ordered a hearing in the PFAS class action suit against Aquarion for July 24.
Aquarion is accused of knowingly selling PFAS-contaminated water above the 4-ptt threshold. Westport has 2 of Aquarion’s contaminated wells.
Aquarion lists those wells under different system names, so most people don’t realize they are actually located here.
Did you know that with over $35 million, Westport is by far the #1 town for required PFAS treatments? As of now, the treatment is scheduled for 2028 and 2029.
So why did Eversource sell? The business model was dead. Under a new regulatory regime at PURA, the regulatory process is livestreamed, so residents can now easily follow the proceedings.
While it remains an opaque process, it marked the end of the rubber-stamping rate hike applications and ended the profit party. Private buyers were unlikely to step in under these circumstances.
In response, legislators held a rushed emergency session to let the RWA buy Aquarion. Most lawmakers had no idea what they voted for.
State Representative Jonathan Steinberg
A notable exception was Westport’s State Representative Jonathan Steinberg, who voted “no.”
RWA won the bid with an eye-popping $2.4 billion offer; most likely they were the only bidder.
Fairfield First Selectman Bill Gerber asked, “How do you pay for $2.4 billion in debt when you only make $30 million a year?” The answer: higher water bills, debt payments for the next 40 years, and new debt for infrastructure improvements.
Let’s hope RWA wins its bet on favorable market conditions and cost controls over the next 40 years. (To be fair, any private investor would have even more challenges financing $2.4 billion with Aquarion’s current business.
The North Avenue tank project was never for the reasons stated by Aquarion. Seven years after the tank construction application, we now know that itwas part of a $200 million pipeline effort, and that the project lacked any justification for Westport residents or anyone in Connecticut. The numbers presented by Aquarion in favor of the tank project in Westport were never true.
This deal seems similar: Aquarion’s balance sheet and acquisition details are considered a trade secret. First Selectman Gerber’s questions will not be answered. Essentially, the public pays Eversource’s shareholders for something it knows little about.
Why build something unnecessary? Because they can. Private utilities profit from infrastructure — the more they build, the more they earn. Building more than prudent is called “gold-plating.”
A Connecticut Department of Energy & Environment Protection study confirmed that gold-plating is a multi-billion-dollar problem in Connecticut’s utility sector.
Aquarion’s pipelines, tanks, and pump stations are all examples. The pump station on North Avenue, for instance, is designed to serve a particular area in town with 1,312 water customers, with a projected average daily water use of 1,044 gallons per day. The real average of water use in Westport is 124 gallons per day.
Construction of the water tanks on North Avenue.
We hope this practice will end with the RWA purchase, but it likely won’t.
Despite PURA’s warnings of gold-plating, Aquarion will continue spending an estimated 3 times more than what is prudent.
However, regulatory filings suggest that RWA has significantly better water quality, e.g. PFAS or lead service lines. So far, it is unclear what the new owner, RWA, can and will change about the way Aquarion’s business is currently being done.
Can gold-plating be stopped? Theoretically, yes. But it will take regulatory will to change. As DEEP states, opposing gold-plating places “an almost impossible burden on challengers.”
In its recent ratecase decision, PURA accused Aquarion of spending a total of $600 million, without clear evidence of prudence.
Why did PURA approve 93% of the gold-plating anyway? Because Aquarion is in financial distress and water service was at risk, the authority approved expenses with little to no evidence of prudence. Now the public inherits the problem — and the bill.
Interestingly, Aquarion fights at the Supreme Court for the remaining 7% of its rate hike application. The company argues that it used to get everything they asked for in the past.
The bigger picture – we’re still stuck with a broken water plan. In 2018, Connecticut approved its first State Water Plan. Thanks to private utilities, however, it was toothless — all consensus, little action.
Since then, little has changed beyond enhanced drought monitoring and some new conservation efforts, and problems are piling up. Those problems include PFAS and lead contamination, inadequate fire protection, wastewater runoff, and future strains on the existing water supply.
Many dedicated volunteers from across sectors are trying to do their best with limited resources to manage these challenges. Past leaders who were known to be cozy with the utilities have retired, and new state officials seem to make a genuine attempt to finally get things right.
In any case, real progress will take a while. Oversight of water remains opaque, and Aquarion, as the largest water company, remains a black box.
The state’s management of investor-owned utilities over the past 20 years has been costly, and undoing the damage will take time money, and effort. Still, the public option is the best of two evils.
Why don’t you hear more about this? Because it’s complicated. Because Aquarion’s public statements are legal smokescreens. Because disputes often end in settlements and nondisclosure agreements. Because ratepayer representation has very limited resources and faces private companies with nearly unlimited legal budgets; regulators are the only “competition” a monopoly has.
Currently, Connecticut’s chief regulator faces at least 4 legal challenges and a public campaign against her instigated by various private utility companies, including Eversource/Aquarion.
What’s the solution? The regulator should approve the acquisition with the condition that Eversource pays $500 million into a state water fund. and the Office of Consumer Affairs will be significantly strengthened.
This way, Eversource shareholders will not lose money on its Aquarion investment – eminent domain would cost more – and the state has resources to address critical issues of water quality and supply, and consumers have a minimum voice.
What’s next? After the regulators’ public hearing on June 25 via Zoom, they’ve scheduled a hearing on July 17, which can be followed live on YouTube. Follow the case in the PURA docket 25-04-03.
(“06880″‘s Opinion pages are open to all. Email submissions to 06880blog@gmail.com. To support this hyper-local blog with a tax-deductible contribution, please click here. Thank you!)
Mr. Lemcke and his dedicated research partner spouse, deserve our thanks for understanding and explaining this massive fraud and manipulation of our public water system by the utilities responsible. From the little I know of this complicated scheme and the misrepresentations and conflicts of interest that characterized the process to replace the tanks on North Avenue, this is only the tip of an iceberg of corruption and collusion played out at taxpayer expense. It deserves the attention of a special prosecutor.
Proof, once again, what would we do without Woog’s “06880”
….we would certainly be in the dark about what matters.
I have lived in this town for (35) years and Aquarian has been sold at least three times since I arrived.
One political party’s main mantra is; deregulate everything, (look at how well that has worked in our airline industry) allow the free market to run everything, government can’t be trusted, yada, yada, yada.
Yet with all this deregulation, returns to shareholders always trumps (sorry, I hate that word!) reinvesting capital on our infrastructure. The infrastructure in our country is abysmal !
True, government agencies can be poorly run and politics can play a hand in changes in leadership but I would prefer to take my chances with a well regulated, accountable, government operated utility system, as opposed to a privately operated, for profit system, who’s primary goal is to provide returns on investments to its shareholders, abandoning focus on improving our decrepit infrastructure systems.
Today, China apparently has some of the best infrastructure systems in the world, highways, bridges, rails, utilities, etc. Stating that anything government operated in this country never works well, is simply throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Point being; what did you expect? Private enterprises run these systems into the ground and then come running to end users for rate hikes. Nothing new here.
Joe,
China has been able to build roads, bridges, highways, etc without having to worry about things like environmental issues or land acquisition (the “people” own the land and can very easily remove people who might be blocking a planned road) or financing (our trade deficit has helped them with that) or public opinion (the CCP would not enjoy or tolerate an 06880-like comments section. Jen Tooker, don’t get any ideas.)
I worked on a road project in China in the 1980s and the things we worry about in the US were not concerns in China at that time. This is true for most countries in early growth phases. Our country certainly did not grow and expand in the 19th century by caring about land rights, treaties or the environment. But add a totalitarian government into the mix, and China is not an approriate example for how any country should develop.
Thank you, Marc, for taking the time to lay this all out in way that those of us who have only been following it casually can understand. At some expense, I’ve upgraded my water filter system to (allegedly) remove the PFAS in the water which Aquarion sells me. But it appears from your piece that locating a rate increase filter will be more of a challenge. Thank you again for this valuable public service.
They lied, then they lied again and again and again. Now perhaps the regulatory system is righting itself and Eversource needs to get out before we all find out about the true extent of the contamination everywhere. I want to know if Eversource lived up to all their agreements made to Westport in replacing pumping stations, fixing malfunctioning fire hydrants in Saugatuck and replacing water lines connected to the Charney project of 157 units?
Good Work Marc. Thank you for putting this together for all of us.
Let’s be honest. Westport has great water. Dan (Woog not Katz) and I were raised on it and look how good we turned out. Westport has the best schools in the world and every one of them has drinking fountains that are fed by Acquarion. There has not been one case (that I know of) where a child has gotten sick from drinking out of a water fountain in Westport schools. For years as a child I used Westport’s public water to clean my tub. I cleaned the tub, the tile floors and everything surrounding it. I’m thriving at the ripe old age of 73. So is Jack Backiel who is older yet. So before you throw Acquarion under the bus, consider that. Thanks Dan (Katz, not Woog) for contributing your sage opinion (on other topics).
Eric, We have Long Lots, a dilapidated school with horrible facilities and poor quality water that needs to be torn after 71 years and replaced by a 120 million dollar building because that’s the way we do things in Texas!!!!
Jack, you are wise beyond your years. Probably from reading Dan’s (Woog, not Katz) blog. Keep drinking!!! (water, not liquor) and always stay hydrated my friend!!!
I believe Eversource sold Aquarion in order to generate cash to address its financial problems. Eversource made a mistake in acquiring Aquarion and after poor management sought to sell the business to raise funds to pay the bills of Eversource. Eversource is poorly run. Our water supplies and electricity are best provided when provided by a public agency, not a private company. Joe Vallone is correct. Profit should not be relevant to public services. Our utilities were once regulated, public operations. That model was rejected many years ago in favor of capitalism. That was a mistake and we are all bearing the consequences. Jonathan Steinberg is on top of all this and needs our support. One positive, we have a wonderful reservoir north of Westport. It provides our water and also mandates the preservation of the area to protect the reservoir. All of us benefit from that reality, its beauty and its preservation of a natural treasure.
Bottom line when Mark Lemke foia’d documents the town attorney refused to hand them over !
In fact as far as I know there are TENS of documents being withheld by town attorney.. who the FOIA commission has said need to be turned over.
why ????? Why ?
Why are we being bamboozled ?
REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER !!!
SkUllDuGgERy. It’s around every corner.
Please take a break WeBsTER, get outside.
Wendy, I take it you approve of the poor water quality we are subjected to being pointed out clearly in this article.
Well I DO NOT want to be poisoned.
And last I checked we still have free speech so I can comment on whatever I like !
I’m so sorry that bothers you ! It is especially interesting when someone like you is upset about a comment which defends the transparent disclosure of the poisonous water we are having to consume.
SMH
A master work in investigation and persistence, and so well explained. Incredible thanks to Marc Lemcke. We should all be paying attention to this. It is shocking.
The price will be far more than 2.4b. they are getting out before the hammer drops and someone needs to clean things up to the tune of many billions. Of course that will be at the expense of the taxpayers and residents. It’s very scary how little attention is being paid to the contamination, chemicals, and risky ingredients in our water, food, etc. God help us all.
There was an additional shocker to this deal as discussed today at the PURA hearing mentioned above.
A sticker-shocker to be exact. It has to do with local property tax and was likely the reason many local town leaders were on the call protesting the deal, and declaring a rushed decision and lack of transparency and a rushed decision
If Aquarion is acquired by this quasi-public entity RWA/AWA, the new utility would not be required to pay local taxes.
Aquarion is Westport’s fourth largest tax payer, accounting for about 3.5% of the town’s total property tax revenue. Aquarion has a 2024 assessed value of about $40.5 million, which would equate to about $7.6 million in taxes using the 25/26 million rate of $18.86 per $1,000.
So in addition to the 4% tax increase that will be borne by Westport taxpayers for the new elementary school, Westport stands to lose a significant chunk of its tax base in the short term.