Great Barrington — The long-troubled utility company Housatonic Water Works has given the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) notice that it has delayed the installation of a manganese filter system. Company attorneys Jed Nosal and Jesse Reyes of Boston law firm Womble Bond Dickinson LLP filed the notice on Friday, January 24.
Installation of the filtration system was part of the rate-increase plan approved by the DPU in July. As proposed, HWW customer rates will increase by over 90 percent over five years. The settlement also includes a capital project list, including a manganese filter system, an interconnection with the Great Barrington Fire District, a new water storage tank, and a main replacement.
“At the time of the execution of the Settlement Agreement, the manganese filtration project that was planned to address water discoloration, which has been the primary source of customer complaints about service quality, was expected to be in service by the end of 2024,” Reyes wrote in the filing to DPU. “This project has been delayed because the company’s lenders have declined to finance the project due to financial risks that arose subsequent to the Department’s approval of the Settlement Agreement.”
In his letter, Reyes cites the Great Barrington Board of Health’s Order to Correct issued against the company on August 22, 2024.
The board upheld the order at its meeting on September 10, and HWW subsequently filed for a preliminary injunction against the town and the Board of Health in Berkshire Superior Court on September 27. On October 17, Berkshire Superior Court Associate Justice John Agostini issued a preliminary injunction against the Board of Health. According to Reyes, the town and the Board of Health appealed the injunction on November 20.
“As the town of Great Barrington’s representatives are aware through the company’s pleadings, the Board of Health’s order would have placed the company at risk of financial insolvency within a short period,” Reyes writes. “The company’s lenders have declined to finance the company’s capital projects until the Board of Health’s order is definitively invalidated or rescinded. While the company has received a grant to cover a portion of the manganese removal project, the majority of the financing is conventional, and the company’s long-time lender is awaiting the resolution of this issue before issuing financing. Assuming the matter is resolved in the company’s favor in early 2025, the company will petition the Department for approval of the financing as soon as its lenders provide indicative terms and hopes to commence the project and place it in service in the first half of 2026.”
Reyes writes that the company would now delay the implementation of a 39.68 percent rate increase on customers that was due to start on August 1. He adds that any rate increase would “need to be delayed to at least four months after the commissioning date of the project, likely in mid-2026.”
Click here for the filing.
