NASHUA – Pennichuck Water Works customers will likely see their bills go up about 39 cents a month in the future to pay for infrastructure upgrades, but the rate hike could’ve been worse had the city not purchased the water utility, officials wrote to aldermen earlier this month.
Repairs to Pennichuck’s infrastructure will boost water rates by 0.85 percent, Pennichuck CEO John Patenaude and Pennichuck Chairman Jay Leonard wrote in a letter. Prior to city ownership, however, customers rates would have seen a 1.29 percent increase, or 60 cents more a month, they said.
“The lower cost to customers under city ownership is due to the fact that the company’s cost of capital is lower than what the former private owners would have been allowed to charge,” they wrote in a letter of response to a December letter from Ward 4 Alderman Art Craffey.
Craffey probed Pennichuck’s leadership after The Telegraph reported the water utility would request an increase from ratepayers.
“The citizens of Nashua, as well as the other customers and town officials, were told that their water rates would grow at a slower rate and be lower with Pennichuck Water Works under the city of Nashua control,” Craffey wrote, summoning the board of directors to meet with aldermen. “This now appears to be incorrect with the Pennichuck Water Work’s current board of directors and senior leadership seeking an emergency rate hike less than a year after the acquisition.”
Craffey said Monday that he would have liked to hear about the upcoming increases from Pennichuck officials directly, rather than through a letter or The Telegraph.
“I wish they had come in and talked to us, even if it was in a nonpublic session,” Craffey said.![]()
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