Paul Silva, an Autumn Lane resident and staunch supporter of secondary waters meters, believes so. After heavily advocating for secondary water meters at multiple Select Board meetings, the board ultimately voted 3-2 to adopt a 500 unit pilot program. You would think that would be the end of Mr. Silva’s advocacy after finally getting 2nd meters (outside water use only) back in Reading after a 20+ year hiatus. You would be incorrect.
Mr. Silva decided to dig deeper into why the water rates in Reading are so high (up to $ 12.97 in Tier 4 per 748 gallons) compared to other cities and towns (Brookline is as low as $3.14). The answer always was; Reading bought into the MWRA program at the wrong time (Reading is 1 of 6 communities were ever charged out of 67) and there was nothing that could be done regarding our $10.9 million dollar buy in (slated to fall of the books in 2026). Or was there…
This coming Thursday, March 13, 2025 at 10:00 AM the MWRA Executive Committee is meeting and on the agenda is the Correspondence – Entrance Fee Waiver Letter submitted by Mr. Silva. Please note, Registration is required to join and you can register via Zoom here.
The synopsis of the letter according to Mr. Silva is the following:
“The primary facts: The Enabling Statute does not include the words Entrance Fees. The Enabling Statute gives some mention of historic investment of existing communities, however, there was no investment. These communities paid for water and got water.
The inherent unfairness of waiving the next $100 million or so in Entrance Fees (2022 decision) and doing nothing for
Reading. The MWRA has collected about $25 million in Entrance Fees from the beginning of which Reading paid
10.9 million. Burlington just received a waiver totaling around $15 million.
Reading has contributed mightily to MWRA profitability. Our assessment is about $2.9 million/yr when the actual
incremental cost to the MWRA is about 4% of this number. Over 20 or so years, we have provided a net contribution in the range of greater than $50 million on a marginal basis.
The Entrance Fee waiver decision that was made in 2022 should have been enacted in the early 2000’s. Had the 15 or so towns now projected to join the MWRA in the absence of Entrance Fees joined in 2005, the net incremental revenue over the years would have totaled approximately $700 million. For what? Apparently to collect just $25 million in Entrance Fees. Clearly, a horrible non-decision that cost all MWRA communities dearly.
The MWRA had the same excess water in 2008 that they did in 2022. The usage was 205.6MG/day in 2008 and
207.6MG — both well below the safe yield of 300MG/day. It is the correct thing to do.”
We plan on covering this early morning Thursday meeting and releasing an article afterwards. The actual letter is attached below which adds more information and tables:
