NEW BRITAIN – Citing a massive mathematical error that overlooked nearly half a billion dollars in projected rate increases, Attorney General William Tong and Consumer Counsel Claire Coleman on April 8 filed a joint petition urging the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) to reconsider the regulator’s recent decision approving change of control to Aquarion Water Authority from Aquarion Water Co. The decision followed the 2025 $2.4 billion sale of Aquarion Water Co. by Eversource Energy.
The petition identifies major financial and legal errors in PURA’s March decision that understate the cost to customers and undermine the agency’s public interest finding. They believe the approved sale would increase water bills and weaken oversight of customer rates.
PURA’s decision last month allowed the transfer of ownership to the newly formed Aquarion Water Authority from Aquarion Water Co.
Tong and Coleman are asking PURA to reopen the proceeding, correct the errors and reconsider whether the transaction meets the public interest standard based on the evidence in the record.
After initially denying the application in November, PURA was ordered by the Superior Court to reconsider the decision. While the court required additional proceedings, it also reaffirmed PURA’s independent authority to determine whether the transaction serves the public interest.
PURA’s approval would place approximately $5.9 billion in acquisition and financing costs on Aquarion customers, including $3.6 billion in interest on the purchase price.
The petition further identifies a critical error in PURA’s analysis, which failed to account for approximately $474 million in additional rate increases through 2066.
Specifically, PURA’s final decision concludes that “AWA anticipates proposed annual increases from 2027 through 2035. After 2035, AWA state that there will be no further rate increases until 2040 and with rate applications every five years thereafter.”
That analysis was incorrect because PURA based its decision on hypothetical financial modeling and a spreadsheet that had been compressed in size. In fact, the correct, fully expanded document projects nearly half a billion dollars in additional rate increases during that time period, Tong and Coleman said.
“This is a bombshell that blows open the entire Aquarion decision. PURA completely missed half a billion dollars in rate increases,” Tong said. “Their entire decision rested on bad math based on incomplete information. There’s just no question that PURA must immediately reconsider its decision and reject the sale.”
Coleman said PURA’s mistake “doesn’t just tip the scale; it breaks it.”
“PURA approved the transaction despite finding that the exorbitant purchase price places the proposed transaction on the ‘knife’s edge of a public interest finding,’ she said. “PURA must reconsider its decision based on the complete evidence in the record, and take steps to adequately protect the families and businesses within 57 towns currently served by Aquarion in Connecticut.”
State Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding called last month’s PURA decision a “backbreaker.”
“This new discovery of significant errors just might offer Aquarion customers a reprieve from a tsunami of annual water rate hikes,” he said. “Yes, this decision must be reconsidered. Yes, we must hit the pause button.”
He has continued to call the legislative deal last year to form the nonprofit Aquarion Water Authority for the purchase of purchasing Aquarion Water Co. a deal that has “stunk” from day one. “It was the product of an atrocious legislative backroom handshake that silenced the voices of the public,” he added.
