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Springfield Water and Sewer Commission proposes 6.5 percent rate hike

a man standing in front of a large water reservoir
Paul Tuthill
/
WAMC
Springfield Water and Sewer Commission Executive Director Josh Schimmel at the Cobble Mountain Reservoir.

Average residential bill would go up by $7 per month

It may cost a quarter of a million residents in western Massachusetts more money later this year to turn on the water tap.

A 6.5 percent rate increase is being proposed by the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission.

If the new rates are approved, it would raise the average residential customer’s monthly bill by $7.

A virtual public hearing on the proposed rates is scheduled for Tuesday May 31 at 6 PM.

WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with the commission’s executive director Josh Schimmel.

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.