Connecticut Water Co. investing $60 million in infrastructure

Connecticut Water Co. investing million in infrastructure

The Connecticut Water Co. will invest $60 million this year on more than 100 infrastructure upgrades and improvement projects, officials with the Clinton-based utility have announced.

Connecticut Water, which serves more than 350,000 people in 60 communities in the state, will be replacing components of its distribution network that are between 40-and-100-years old. One of the larger projects is a new $12 million water treatment facility being built in East Windsor to serve customers in north central Connecticut, according to Dan Meaney, a spokesman for the utility

“That’s our largest system and the new work is replacing something that went on line in the late 1960s or early 1970s,” Meaney said. Work on replacing the water treatment system started last year and will be completed by the end of the summer, he said.

David Peeling, Connecticut Water’s vice president if engineering, making investments in the company’s distribution network “is costly to … install, maintain and replace.”

“But it is imperative for us to continually make investments in our water systems so that customers and communities served by Connecticut Water can count on high-quality drinking water and reliable service for generations to come,” Peeling said. “Aside from maintaining a safe water supply, replacing water mains, treatment systems and storage facilities in a planned and systematic manner costs less than emergency repairs.”

Other improvements being made to the company’s distribution network include more than 30 water main replacement projects across the state involving 1,850 miles of piping as well as upgrades to hundreds of other facilities such as pump stations, water treatment and storage tanks. One of those new water main projects got started this week in Chester, where nearly half a mile of new piping will be installed along the Kings Highway at a cost of $1.4 million.

The new main in Chester will replace existing pipe that was installed in 1969. Three fire hydrants will also be replaced as part of the project, which will be completed by the end of August.

It will take the efforts of about 260 construction workers to complete this year’s improvement projects. A majority of the improvements are being done by outside contractors hired by Connecticut Water, Meaney said.

Connecticut Water is also installing a 275 kilowatt array of solar panels in Clinton to offset the power needs of the company’s Clinton office, as well as the southern region work center and two electric vehicle charging stations, which are need because the utility is electrifying part of its fleet. Work on the solar array got underway last month and will be completed by the end of June.

Company officials said the solar array will keep the utility from having to purchase power from more traditional sources at prices that are subject to fluctuation. That in turn will help Connecticut Water to stabilize the cost of delivering water to customers.

The company already has two other solar arrays serving parts of its network. One is at the utility’s Stewart Water Treatment Plant in Naugatuck and the other is in Colchester at the company’s Westchester Village system.

Meaney said Connecticut Water will ultimately seek to recover some the costs associated with the system improvement by going before state utility regulators to seek a rate increase.

“These are increased costs associated with operating and we do file rate cases periodically,” he said. “We have a time frame in mind for the filing, but it’s not something we are prepared to share at this point.”

Connecticut Water improvements to its distribution network come even as the state’s other large water company, Aquarion, is in court appealing a rate hike request that was rejected by utility regulators in March.

At that time, the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority denied the Bridgeport-based utility’s rate hike request increase that could have increased rates by 27 percent over three years. Instead, PURA ordered that Aquarion customers water rates be reduced by about $67 per year.

Aquarion filed an appeal of the PURA ruling on March 30 in New Britain Superior Court and was granted a temporary stay of the regulatory decision. A hearing in the case was scheduled for Monday.

Meaney said Connecticut Water is following the Aquarion court challenge as it makes its way through the legal system.

“We’re looking to interpret their filing in such way that we can improve our own when the time comes,” Meaney said of the Aquarion rate case.