Your sole option is to replace the people in power who allow this to continue.

If you don't demand a change at the ballot box you have absolutely no cause to complain.

Remember In November - ABD. Anybody But Democrats.

They’re going to keep buying public water

My mayor is republican. Not that it matters because plenty of CT politicans are financially tied to eversource even the dems.

How do I know what is in negotiation before it goes down? I don't see any news coverage or anything about it.

What do I have to do to stay informed?

Obtain the docket number and read everything submitted to PURA. The hearings are public.

So I need to consistently monitor it before it happens? No public discussion or announcment necessary? How should anyone know what to expect before it is inflicted on them?

An antitrust lawsuit against EVERSOURCE is overdue.

Public utilities are monopolies by necessity. It would be stupid to have multiple companies compete to build pipelines, data lines, and power lines to your house.

The difference between a free market monopoly (ie Google for search) and a public utility (ie Eversource) is regulations and oversight by a public utility commission (a function of CT govt) which allows the utility to pass through operating costs and collect a rate of return on capital invested to build new infrastructure.

One issue is with the type of oversight. There is no incentive to reduce operating costs because they are passed through to us. There is a perverse incentive to build as much as possible and for it to cost as much as possible so that they can collect an annual investment return on a bigger base of assets.

So don't be furious at the utility, be furious at the ineffective regulation. That being said, utility regulation is no different here than anywhere else. Plenty of places in the US have cheap utility bills.

The main difference relative to other regions of the US is that infrastructure cost in the northeast is more expensive (labor, permitting, regulatory compliance, etc) and natural gas (which drives power prices) is far more expensive, especially in the winter. The Northeast, particularly NY has essentially banned any new pipeline build which causes gas to be constrained in the winter when home heating demand is heaviest. The justification is the anti-fracking movement, NIMBYism, and lack of open space and right of ways to build this infrastructure. Same goes for power transmission lines that could import cheap hydro power from Quebec or other cheap power sources.

So for your high utility bills, blame NIMBYism, environmentalists, and other opposition to cheap power and natural gas. And if you believe we shouldn't build more gas pipelines, wind farms off the Cape (because they're an eyesore), transmission lines to bring in cheap power or reach remote solar/wind, etc., then don't blame yourself, but just recognize that's the price we all pay to make the world a less carbon intensive place and to not have power and gas lines buried in our backyards.

Oh and I forgot to mention natural gas is just expensive across the US now because European gas is through the roof (again, underinvestment coupled with loss of Russian gas), driving our gas higher since we can export some of it via LNG. It's hard to get companies to invest in more gas wells because ESG pressure to reduce gas consumption makes it a dubious long term investment.

Aquarion is great. Nothing to be disgruntled about

Great summary

What was your water company before

“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

For the record, there's a reason electric and water companies are granted monopolies (in exchange for regulation). If you think power lines are unsightly now, imagine five companies running separate sets of poles and lines down your street. And if it seems like the water company is always digging up the road in front of your house now, wait until there's a half-dozen of them competing for your business (not to mention the gas company....).

The best place to exert pressure is the regulatory agency (PURA), and the second-best is your local lawmaker's office. I worked at an electric company, and I can tell you from personal experience the extent to which the executives lay awake in bed at night worrying about pending regulatory decisions and legislation. (Not suggesting that I ever slept with a power company executive, mind you -- but I certainly got plenty of anxious emails from them during hours when normal humans are sleeping.)

I will actually agree with this one. I wish nothing but severe diarrhea on the eversource execs, but Aquarian has been reasonably priced compared to mdc

Great sumerary except for data lines. This is the one case where muni's can do it right. One fiber per home muni networks are a good split. Muni's do what they are good at taking care of a passive fiber network and providing the interconnect point. Providers get out of the last mile business. A piece of fiber made in the 60's can carry modern signals this is not expected to change. That single fiber can carry multiple data providers simultaneously using what amounts of prisms to break out and combine different colors of light.

Agreed, good point. One fiber run but free choice of data providers. Muni/coop or investor owned utility owning the actual fiber doesn't matter too much, as long as you have a choice in data provider. Sort of like you have a choice of power provider but Eversource owns the power lines so you pay them for transmission and distribution.

Which town?

Harwinton here, same story.

Yup 2 or 20 cable TV providers phone internet etc does not matter just colors of light on glass.

Reasonable comparison but unlike power distribution there is no per unit cost a fiber doing 10mbs cost the same as one doing 100gbs each to 20 providers.

I blame politicians in eversources pocket. Towns are accountable to voters. Privatizatized companies are accountable to shareholders who aren't neccesarily local.

It diminishes democratic control over basic necessities.

Eversource also charges higher rates for the same services in CT than other states they operate in.

Torrington for me. I recently bought this house. But still don't get how I should stay on top of local politics.

We pay some of the highest utility costs in the country and they aren't as reliable as they should be for what we pay.

public town owned

Yep the next commodity that we'll be able to speculate on and see wild swings in prices just like oil.

So it looks like you had Torrington Water which was like Aquarian Water an investor owned water company and not owned by the town. At this point only small water companies invested owned and public are on the small side and don’t have the money or the will of the government to spend the money that needs to be spent to upgrade systems to bring them into federal and state compliance. Many times the state will hold the for profits hostage to buy little companies they really don’t want. I live in Florida now and would kill for my water bill to be as low and the quality at high when I was an Aquarian customer

Wait for the bills to start monthly…

I am shaky on CT policy but in RI we have a public utilities commission. It’s a public board of appointed members and they vote to approve an increase in rate request from a utility. They either say no or yes… and the saying here is they always say yes. There’s always a Public hearing, but they always do say yes. They don’t really say well you asked for 10 you really only need 5 to break even, well give you 7. They just give 10. It’s so frustrating.

Yes but there comes a point when they have forced us to choose between them and food and shelter. It’s a strange and cruel thing to be forced to buy something without a chance of thrift. In the past, one could choose to use candles and kerosene to save on electricity or oil but now, two necessary public commodities are scalping the public (and they are posting excessive profits) without mercy or opportunity for negotiation.

No amount of future regulation can balance this unconscionable and rapacious excuse for gluttony. We are at a time in history where there is tremendous opportunity for alternative resources and we are trapped under flagrant corruption disguised as pragmatism.

That’s is completely false for me. I’m sorry you experience this though

We used to have a private community well, funded by our community, which was great until the well started to fail and we had to pay hundreds of dollars a month to have water trucked in. Aquarian bought our system and it was such a relief. The state regulates what the company can charge us and it is a very reasonable amount. If you really want to avoid paying a utility for your water, buy a house with its own well. That will have its own headaches and expenses though.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ES/financials?p=ES

Where do you see excessive profits? Their profit is literally regulated by the state.

Eversource did not cause natgas to go from $1 to 6 (or $30 in the winter in NE). Imagine being in Europe where it is $40+. I think there's a lot of fat in the system just as much as anyone, but geopolitics is the driving factor for most of the cost increase in the last couple of years. Eversource's problems were already reflected in everyone's baseline power bill.

The state agencies have email lists and usually stuff like this has to go through a public notice/comment period which is published in the newspaper.

For water? I don’t think that’s accurate. We are incredibly lucky to actually have clean water in this state and enough of it (generally). I hate neversource too but Aquarion is run pretty fairly (so far).

Wait until you hear about how Drinking water in areas where it’s not as plentiful as it is here.

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…you are aware GOP Congressional Candidate George Logan is an Aquarion executive, right?

When talking about just the optics part not at all. CWDM is entirely passive and does not care whats going over a given channel. Getting CWDM optics for 10mbs might be a bit hard but thats just because it's outdated.

Yes higher up it's very different but the entire point is thats not part of the muni's job. They just need to build/maintain the optical last mile, just glass and prisms no actual networking kit nothing that needs power even. That's within their capabilities anything more will probably crater badly at some point. This is also not how typical fiber to the home is deployed but thats a bit of the point of it.

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And one of their former lobbyists is trying to get elected to congress :)

Yes but why do you think thats at all a limiting factor? At least 1 strand per building/apartment/house/etc to start thats 16 channels on typical CDWM kit so 8 providers. Even if they break up everything thats 3-4 providers (TV, Internet, Phone, and alarm). Sure a pair is nicer and putting extra glass in the ground up front is never a bad thing. End of the day glass is fairly cheap putting it into the hole and terminating it not so much.

It's by no means perfect but it's gotten well past the point it's a reasonable solution within the capabilities of muni's to do. Plenty of fiber going in for traffic management where they allready have contacts for the service end and bringing the skillset in house is not a bad thing for the muni.

Their profitability is regulated by the states to be a percentage of costs. They inflate costs and overrun the budgets of approved projects because that directly inflates the profits they're allowed to pull, even though the margins are the same. John Oliver did a great episode on this

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/16/john-oliver-us-utility-companies-last-week-tonight-recap

>The law imposed some restrictions – companies are supposed to spend the least they can while providing quality, environmentally safe service. “Which sounds great, because it caps their ability to make too much money,” Oliver said. “But, and this is a huge but, there is a carve-out. Because when they build something – a piece of physical infrastructure – they’re allowed to then pass along that cost to you through your bill, plus an additional percentage that they get to keep as profit” that’s usually about 10%. “This creates a clear incentive: the bigger the project, like a power plant, the more profit they make.

Corporations are beholden to shareholders. It takes years to see the downstream consequences of privitization. Look at what happened in Flint.

I don't approve of the privitization. It takes control from voters and gives it to shareholders. The monopoly part would be fine by me if it was state owned.

Shill away. Eversource has been a problem in this state for many years. They control electric and natural gas already. This level of consolidation by a publicly traded company is suspect.

Shareholders who don't rely on these services will care more about profit than quality especially when they hold a monopoly on basic necessities.

This sub in a nutshell: raise minimum wage! No one can afford to live here anymore! ….. hey why are my utilities so expensive?????