COMMUNITY NEWS

Water study stresses present costs over future savings

Taxes counted in costs, though questions remain

Posted

Part two of a Herald Life report.

The engineering firm that conducted a study of the area’s water system, analyzing the pros and cons of a municipal authority buying it from current operator New York American Water Company, Inc., went by one yardstick: whether ratepayers would pay more or less for water in the next 30 years.

The firm, George E. Sansoucy, P.E., LLC, estimated that water would cost ratepayers more from 2014 to 2044 if a municipal owner delivered it to homes and institutions instead of NYAW. (The company currently supplies water to Merrick, Bellmore, Wantagh and Seaford, among other communities nearby.)  

Sansoucy’s analysis, however, suggests that the outlook for a municipal water utility improves over time. The firm predicted that a municipal owner’s costs would be 20 percent higher than NYAW’s in 2015, 10 percent higher in 2025, 8 percent higher in 2035 and 6 percent higher in 2044. The study, which the Water Authority of Southeastern Nassau County paid Sansoucy to conduct, does not extend beyond that year.

Asked if water municipalization might bring ratepayers savings in 50 or 100 years, and if future savings could balance out the anticipated initial costs, WASENC Chairman Richard Ronan said he did not know. 

“You’d have to pay to have somebody, a financial guy, to continue this process out to see if there’s something in the future,” Ronan said.

On average, people in 32 of 33 municipal water districts throughout Nassau paid hundreds of dollars less for water in 2010 than people in Nassau’s three private water districts, according to Sansoucy’s study. The study argues that these municipal water districts provide water at a lower price because they have already existed for “decades.”

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