Save Our Water CT Testimony to MDC Board

Save Our Water CT opposes the proposed MDC combined water and Clean Water Project Charge discounts being offered to large corporate super-users.
 
The MDC faces real financial challenges from problems decades in the making: repairs needed for aging water and sewer infrastructure, a consent decree to clean up sewage overflows into the CT River, and an overall decrease in water consumption. For resident ratepayers, especially low-income families, increasing water rates are challenging budgets and forcing families to choose between water and other essential needs.
 
Creating a corporate discount, which applies to one super user- Niagara Bottling of California- is not the solution to challenges faced by the MDC or its low-income customers.

• Let’s be clear:  the discounts proposed add up to an overall 50%: a 20% discount for the water use and 75% for the Clean Water Project Charge (CWPC) for all water use over 600,000 gallons/day on a monthly average. The MDC does not like mentioning the huge CWPC discount, but that’s where “the real money is” for a water bottling corporation. Residents will pay $3.97/ccf for water and $4.10/ccf for the CWPC for a total of $8.07/ccf. Once Niagara hits the discounts, it will pay $3.18/ccf for water and $1.025/ccf for CWPC for a total of $4.205/ccf.
• The MDC is assuring its customers that these discounts will result in a drop in water rates of 11 cents/ccf.  This will happen if (and only if) Niagara uses their full 1.8 M gallons of water/day.  But the MDC is not telling us what the drop in rates would be if Niagara PAID FULL PRICE. These discounts could amount to as much as a $2.2 Million/yr corporate give-away to one environmentally unsound customer. And the Independent Consumer Advocate’s financial analysis indicates that the discount could actually lose MDC money.
• The issue of these corporate discounts is not an “environmental vs. an economic or social justice issue” as the MDC has tried to represent.  Niagara, a privately held, profitable corporation has already expanded without the benefit of discounts and should pay its full and fair share.  Those additional revenues could result in an even larger drop in residential rates- rather than enriching a private corporation. Furthermore, the MDC needs to consider a rate structure which provides for a basic household rate for essential needs, requiring those using high amounts of water to pay more. Access to clean affordable water is a social justice issue.
  
• The environment is a concern for all regardless of income or neighborhood. Plastic production emits pollutants into the air around low-income neighborhoods.  Diesel fumes cause spikes in asthma along truck routes. Plastic micro-particles are now entering our bodies as well as our rivers and oceans. It’s up to us all to protect our shared environment