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Springfield Water And Sewer Commission Proposes 5.9% Rate Hike

a man standing in front of a large water reservoir
Paul Tuthill
/
WAMC

   A quarter million water-users in western Massachusetts could soon pay more when they turn on the tap.

   The Springfield Water and Sewer Commission is proposing new rates that would increase the typical residential customer’s bill by $6 a month beginning July 1st.

    After an almost 10 percent  rate hike last year,  that was sharply criticized by elected officials, the commission got long term low interest loans from the federal and state governments to pay for infrastructure upgrades. The financing is expected to save ratepayers millions.

   WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with Josh Schimmel, the commission’s Executive Director.

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.
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