Pols, advocates request delay in NYAW rate hike and fair study

The Town of Hempstead hired Walden Environmental Engineering Consultants to conduct a feasibility study on acquiring a portion of New York American Water’s Nassau operation, and to be completed in 60 days.

The study will be conducted as a Sept. 1 rate hike looms, potentially raising the bills of hundreds of customers. It was originally postponed on April 1 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but state representatives have requested that NYAW officials do the same again.

“With our state in the midst of a pandemic and economic turmoil, it would be inappropriate and insensitive to raise rates on struggling Long Islanders, especially when water rates are already sky-high,” wrote Senators John Brooks, Todd Kaminsky and James Gaughran to NYAW President Lynda DiMenna on Aug. 12.

At the time of the letter, the state’s unemployment rate was 15.7 percent, a “drastic increase” from a 3.7 percent rate in February before the pandemic began, the senators wrote. Additionally, many businesses have been unable to reopen.

“These and other leading economic indicators all point to the same conclusion: This crisis is far from over, and people are struggling,” they wrote. “This fact is unchanged from when NYAW agreed to delay its April 1 rate hike.”

Merrick-based advocacy group Long Island Clean Air Water and Soil also penned letters to Hempstead officials and Walden, urging for a comprehensive study. They are critical of the town’s previous studies in 2014 and 2016, which “did not indicate meaningful rate cost savings” for customers, according to spokesman Greg Blower, and informed officials’ decision to decline a public takeover.

CAWS Co-Director Dave Denenberg argued that the findings were erroneous, however, and that a public entity’s tax-exempt status would result in actual savings — the study conducted by the Water Authority of Southeast Nassau County in 2014 did not account for tax-exempt status, he said.

In their letter to Walden, Denenberg and CAWS Co-Director Claudia Borecky expressed their concerns about the “scope” of the Hempstead study, and requested that it be conducted with a number of issues in mind.

They urged that the cost of infrastructure improvements and service upgrades between privately and publicly owned entities be compared. “If the study only considers costs for infrastructure upgrades that the ratepayers in the new district would pay, without considering that the same ratepayers would pay more for the same projects if they remain under NYAW, the study would be fatally flawed,” they wrote.

They also requested that Walden study the need for certain staff members, ratepayers’ potential exemption from property, sales and corporation taxes, the cost of cleanup for contaminated wells and savings for fire districts, which would not have to pay a $1,000 fee per fire hydrant under a public water service.

NYAW External Affairs Manager Lee Mueller said in a statement that the current proposed sale to Liberty Utilities is “in our customers’ best interests,” and a sale to a public entity would “take several years, cost taxpayers millions of dollars and lead to gaps in service.”

In July, before the Town hired Walden, Borecky and Denenberg started a petition, declaring “The time to act is now!” — it received more than 1,000 signatures. The petition, as well as an additional 4,000 paper and online signatures, were brought to the attention of Hempstead officials earlier this summer.

“It’s just not right to tax one person differently from another in the same town,” said Borecky, using North Merrick, which is only partially serviced by NYAW, as an example. “A family of five that’s struggling can end up paying more for water — and higher property taxes on water — than another. It’s time to straighten out this unconstitutionality.”