Winsted's Water and Sewer Commission, joined by members of the sewer treatment plant and the public works department, held a public hearing on proposed rate increases for its users Thursday night.

Winsted's Water and Sewer Commission held a hearing March 24 to discuss proposed increases to its user rates. Pictured is a Winsted road improvement project, including new drainage and water pipes, completed in 2020.

Winsted's Water and Sewer Commission, joined by members of the sewer treatment plant and the public works department, held a public hearing on proposed rate increases for its users Thursday night. Pictured is the public works department yard on Rowley Street.

Winsted's Water and Sewer Commission, joined by members of the sewer treatment plant and the public works department, held a public hearing on proposed rate increases for its users Thursday night.

WINSTED — If people stopped flushing disposable wipes and other trash down the toilet, the town’s aging sewer system would probably run a lot more smoothly. But flushed trash, along with aging equipment and a small staff, is costing the town sewer plant more money that its rates can sustain, officials said.

A plan to upgrade the system and its equipment will include proposed rate increases for the sewer plant’s 2,850 users, who would see their quarterly bills double in a rate plan over the next five years.

Members of the Water and Sewer Commission and staff from the plant and public works held a hearing Thursday to explain the proposed rate increase and what it will mean to users.

Bruce Stratford, who recently retired as the town’s finance director but is now a consultant for special projects like this one, explained what the rate increase will equal for users.

Quarterly bills are sent on Feb. 1, May 1, Aug. 1 and Nov. 1. Bills for February cover a customer’s sewer activity from October to December. Each bill includes a base rate for a meter or water fixtures. Small meter customers pay about $50 per quarter; larger meter customers pay about $92. Fixture customers pay $12 per fixture, per quarter.

Of the 2,850 customers, almost 90 percent are metered customers, Stratford said. Some are larger commercial users, and 162 customers, who don’t have meters, are billed based on the number of water fixtures in their homes: toilets, showers and faucets.

“The proposed increases involve increases to the quarterly base rate, a fixture fee, and adding low-pressure grinder pumps — used to grind waste going into the sewer system at the user’s property before it goes into the underground pipes — are also being upgraded or repaired, which will require an added fee,” Stratford said.

“For a person paying approximately $50 per quarter, those quarterly bills would increase to $60 in 2023, $70 in 2023, $80 in 2024, $90 in 2025 and $100 in 2026. Larger users would see the same type of increase.”

The new rates are proposed to begin April 1.

“But because you aren’t billed for use until the following quarter, the increase won’t show up until your Aug. 1 bill,” Stratford said.

The increased fees will help the sewer commission build its revenues, which will increase substantially starting in 2023. The commission has been operating with a budget deficit for a number of years, Stratford said, illustrating the need for more revenue.

“We’ll end up with about $2 million in revenue,” Stratford said. “Part of the purpose of doing this is to preventative maintenance on the system. That means adding new staff, so expenses in 2023 will be higher. But the deficit (caused by ongoing maintenance) will be reduced substantially .... and the revenue will keep the system operating, and revitalize the structure so it will not fail.”

A small group of people attended the hearing, among them Selectwoman Candy Perez, and Planning & Zoning Commission member Willard Platt, who both live on Highland Lake. Several letters were also read aloud, with objections to a rate increase at this time, citing the pandemic and rising costs of living.

The commission used the hearing as an opportunity to share how the system works, and what its challenges are. One of the biggest problems the sewer plant team deals with, said commission member Bill Hester, is flushable wipes and other types of trash, which clog the equipment, cause pump motors to overheat and wreaks havoc on the system intended to separate sludge from water before it flows back into the Still River.

“Those disposable wipes are one of our biggest problems, and we have spent thousands of dollars repairing the damage they cause,” Hester said. “Flushable wipes are not flushable ... Neither is any type of garbage.”

Commission Chairman John Massicotte and members George Closson, Mike Farrell and Hester were joined by Chief Plant Operator Alex Combes and water plant Superintendent Marty Cormier, who spent some time explaining how the 33-year-old sewer plant works and the challenges they face.

Hester reminded sewer users to keep their pipes and dripping faucets repaired, saying that the amount of water wasted can add up quickly.

“On the water side, with a dripping fixture, you can waste three gallons a day,” he said. “If a pipe is leaking, over three months, it can lose 74,000 gallons. It’s pretty important to fix your leaks.”

On the sewer side, Hester said, the disposable wipes, commonly called “rags” by sewer plant workers, have cost more than $1 billion annually in towns and cities across the U.S.

“In New York City in the last five years, they’ve spent $19 million on repairs,” he said.

Along with Winsted’s 2,850 customers, Barkhamsted’s Mallory Brook Plaza on Route 44 was connected to the system last year, and that town is adding a housing development that will connect to the system.

The commission did not vote on the proposed rate increases Thursday.

Emily M. Olson is the community editor for the Torrington Register Citizen, the New Haven Register and the Middletown Press.

She is a 1997 graduate of Western Connecticut State University with a degree in English and a minor in journalism.

She started her career at the Patent Trader newspaper in Westchester County, NY in 1998. After a brief period as a reporter with the Register Citizen in Torrington in 1999, she joined the former Housatonic Publications group as a reporter. She was managing editor of the former Litchfield Enquirer and helped run the weekly newspapers at Housatonic and the Litchfield County Times. She returned to the Register Citizen in 2009.