Consultant Models 327% Increase in Water Bills To Pay for Unnecessary PFAS Treatment

"We need a big increase in rate to really understand what our summer usage is.," Fernando Guitart

Residents worried about the override just got another reason to worry: A consultant hired by the town to look at water rates has suggested that the average water bill in Duxbury could go up 4.26 times between fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2031, if the town goes full bore on PFAS treatment. That’s an increase from $366.94 per year to $1,566.79 per year.

This is insane.

Only a couple of weeks ago, the Selectboard recommended slowing down any investment in PFAS treatment because it’s an area with rapidly evolving technology and because they thought that raising prices would obviate the need for such investment because Duxbury residents might reduce water usage. It’s actually much cheaper to treat PFAS with home filtration with newer products able to reduce the worst PFAS levels down below one part per trillion.

Even without PFAS treatment, the consultant suggests that the average water bill will increase from $366.94 to $590.88 over the same period. That’s an annualized increase of 8.3% per year.

If you want to check back with this article tomorrow, I’ll have more information. Who knows, maybe the news will get better as the meeting goes on.