Partly cloudy early with increasing clouds overnight. Low 58F. Winds light and variable..

Partly cloudy early with increasing clouds overnight. Low 58F. Winds light and variable.

HAVERHILL — City water and wastewater customers are paying more for these two services after rate increases for the current fiscal year.

Officials said an increase in the water rate was needed to offset loans on a major upgrade to the city’s water plant at Kenoza Lake. An increase in the wastewater rate was needed to pay for an increase in the cost of disposing of sludge collected at the plant in Bradford.

Under the new rate structure approved by the City Council in June, the average household pays about $11 more each quarter for water, with the average annual bill rising from $276 to $310.

The average household’s wastewater bill increased about $6 quarterly, or about $24 per year, pushing the average household annual wastewater bill to $490. The rates are the same for residential and commercial customers.

Robert Ward, interim Department of Public Works director, said the increased water rate is being driven by the loan payments on the $41 million water treatment plant upgrade.

“We have two, 20-year loans and we’re about two years into paying them,” he said.

Ward explained that for the last fiscal year, the city didn’t raise the water rate enough to cover the entire loan payment.

“We had offset it with water reserves of $1.6 million so as not to raise the rate as much and we received a state grant of $1.4 million as well as a 2% interest rate on the loans,” he said. “This year we’re using about $1.5 million from our reserve account to offset the rate again, but it still requires a rate increase.”

Ward said that without the use of reserves, which his department had built up, this year’s rate water increase would have been “quite a bit higher.”

Ward said an increase in the wastewater rate was needed to cover the $860,000 increase in the cost of disposing of sludge collected at the wastewater treatment plant in Bradford.

“We’ve never seen this kind of an increase in the cost of sludge disposal,” Ward said. “And that was the low bid.”

The wastewater rate increased from $6.21 per 100 cubic feet (750 gallons) to $6.55 per 100 cubic feet for this fiscal year, he said.

The total cost of sludge disposal for the current fiscal year amounts to $2.6 million, he said.

Water/sewer repair and replacement project begins

Ward said the city received an advantageous 1.5% interest rate from the state’s revolving fund for water and wastewater on a $16 million project to repair or replace water and sewer lines in various areas of the city, starting with Primrose Street, where construction recently began.

“The work will continue for the next year or so and involves the rehabilitation, repair and replacement of water and sewer lines,” he said. “We’re replacing large water mains in areas where we’ve experienced a lot of main breaks due to factors such as the age of the pipes. We’ve also experienced a lot of breaks in pipes produced in the 1980s, and it seems it’s because of poor quality pipes.”

A lot of breaks have also occurred in “very old” 12-inch main on Primrose Street. Ward said the breaks cause a lot of damage to the road and floods neighbors homes.

Ward said the water and sewer project is benefitting from state and federal grants of $1.6 million for water lines and $1 million for sewer lines.

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