Water is a valuable public asset which should be available to all, not sold to the highest bidder to exploit for profits.
Introduction
On May 23, 2024 Aqua Pennsylvania filed for a state wide rate increase. They propose to increase their revenues by $127 million/yr or 19%. This started an extensive legal process run by the Public Utility Commission (PUC) that will culminate in February, 2025. At that time the PUC will announce what Aqua will be allowed to do. Very shortly after that the rate increases will go into effect.
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This page is dedicated to providing key summary information about the rate case.
Rate Case Docket
As noted above, rate cases involve extensive legal proceedings. Some of the documents filed in the case are available to the public. Links to those documents are posted in what is termed the "Case Docket". For Aqua's 2024 filing the docket number is R-2024-3047822. Here is a direct link to it (LINK).
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As of 9/21/2024 there are 329 entries on this docket. Many of these are not useful to the general public:
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#1 - Certificate of Service. There are currently 155 of these. They are merely a notice that one "official" party to the case has sent specific documents to the other "official" parties. The documents themselves are not included.
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#2 - Opposition (Rate cases). There are 102 of these. This is a notice that one or more people have sent some form of opposition to that rate case. The documents are not included. There is a statement that if you want to see them you are welcome to come to Harrisburg and dig them out of their files.
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So, 78% of the current filings are of no use to the public. The current ones that may be useful are Aqua's May 23rd filings. However, there are 19 different PDF documents totaling over 4500 pages, most are pretty dense stuff. In particular:
#1 - Aqua's proposed tariff increases: (LINK)
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#2 - The revenue and cost changes proposed by Aqua: (LINK)
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The next major milestone will be the filing of "Main Briefs" on 10/28/2024. The major parties to the case will have analyzed all the data and will make recommendations about what the PUC should do on dozens of different aspects of the case.
Public Hearings
A routine part of major rate cases is for the PUC to hold public hearings. Basically, anyone can come and testify about anything he wants. For Aqua's case nine hearings were held at five different locations. Plus, there were two more held via telephone. One of the public hearings was in our backyard of New Garden Township. All three Co-Founders of Keep Water Affordable testified. Our testimony can be found here:
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Pete Mrozinski (LINK)
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Margo Woodacre (LINK)
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Bill Ferguson (LNIK)