The Delaware Public Service Commission approves new rates for Veolia water customers in New Castle County after reviewing its infrastructure plan.
Starting Monday New Castle County customers will see a net increase of 12.67% averaged across residential, commercial, and industrial customers.
This average residential bill will go up a little over 4%. That translates to $1.59 per month or 5 cents per day.
The rate hike comes after Veolia made $43 million in drinking water investments expected to enhance water quality, system reliability, supply, safety, and security for more than 100,000 New Castle County customers.
"The types of investments we made consisted of 30 million dollars in replacing and installing new water mains, 7 million dollars in investing and rehabilitating, replacing reservoirs and tanks in our distribution system, and then another six million in upgrades at our plant,” said Michael Bard, Veolia's manager of communications and community relations in Delaware. Having the approval of the commission allows us to continue to make investments in our system."
He adds the improvements were made between 2020 and 2023.
"We're always proactively investing in our system in the manner that I described. Investing in water mains. This is replacing aging water mains and aging infrastructure in communities right in our core service territory. Which is customers in North Wilmington, in Newark, in the Bear and Glasgow area as well," said Bard.
