Enfield
The Enfield Selectboard voted last week to set new fees for the town’s 477 water users in an effort to simplify quarterly bills. Instead of seven different water rates, the town will soon move to one.
But the move likely will impact customers in different ways. Businesses and homeowners who use the most water likely will see decreases, said Jim Taylor, Enfield’s public works director.
“The people using less water, their (bills) are going to go up some,” he said in an interview last week.
Taylor said the new rates aren’t meant to increase anyone’s bills. Rather, they’re part of a push to simplify how those bills are calculated.
Under the current water system, residents are charged based on seven tiers of water use, with those using very little paying the least. Taylor said he believes the system was originally designed to encourage water conservation, but the rate system has grown complicated for many residents.
This summer, the town will instead charge $1.95 for every 1,000 gallons a property uses. The town also will charge a fixed rate of $33 per quarter to those who use less than 10,000 gallons during that time, and $132 to users who exceed that threshold.
A household using 19,500 gallons per quarter would pay $284 under the new billing system, about $23 more than it is paying now, according to a memo written by former Town Manager Steve Schneider. Those using 10,000 gallons a quarter would be charged $111, or $27 less than they’re being billed now.
However, businesses and properties that use upward of 100,000 gallons per quarter will see bills drop to $912 a quarter, more than $500 less than what they’re currently paying, according to the memo.
According to the state Department of Environmental Services, the average New Hampshire household consumes about 18,000 gallons a quarter, or almost 72,000 gallons a year.
“The goal was to get the usage rate to a one-rate system,” Taylor said, adding the town expects to collect the same amount of money from the new rate.
Enfield currently budgets about $277,700 toward the town’s water system, which serves homes and businesses on the north side of Mascoma Lake. And the new rate and fees are calculated to continue to pay those expenses, according to the memo.
Although the Selectboard last week voted unanimously to approve the rates, simplifying the town’s water and sewer rates has been a point of contention among town officials.
In December, the town approved 7 and 15 percent increases in sewer rates. Those who used more of the town’s wastewater system were expected to pick up the higher increase, leading some local businesses to cry foul.
During a Jan. 9 meeting, Selectboard member Fred Cummings argued in favor of reducing the number of water rates down to one. Each gallon of water costs the same to process and the current system penalizes businesses that may use more, he said, according to meeting minutes.
Meanwhile, then-Selectboard Chairman John Kluge argued that households would shoulder the brunt of the burden of such a change.
“Mr. Kluge said that going to a single rate would impose more burden on small-property owners whose rates would go up significantly with a change to one rate, while commercial properties’ rates would go down significantly,” according to minutes of the meeting.
Ultimately, Cummings and Selectboard member Meredith Smith voted to reduce the number of rates, while Kluge voted in opposition.
“I am completely supportive of the structure we have now put in place. I believe it to be fair,” Cummings, now the Selectboard chairman, said in an email last week when asked about the rate changes.
Messages left last week for both Kluge and Smith requesting comment on the water rates were not returned.
When summer bills come due in October, it’s likely the new rates also will put Enfield’s bills above neighboring towns.
Under the fees, those using 78,000 gallons of water a year will end up paying $1,136 annually. In Lebanon, residents who use the same amount of water would pay about $487, and those in Canaan would pay $475.
It’s also likely that Enfield water users will see more rate increases in the future. Taylor said much of the town’s infrastructure, which includes pipes that date back to the turn of the century, needs replacing.
“I expect I will be asking (the Selectboard) to make some modest increase over the next few years to begin replacing some of that infrastructure,” he said.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.