Aquarion Wonders How Hingham Plans to Save Money From Water Purchase

A week after the Hingham Water Company Acquisition Study Committee said they could save the town millions of dollars by purchasing the water system, Aquarion is wondering how they plan to do that.

Jonathan Asher, chairman of the committee said acquiring the water company will save the public more than $70 million over twenty years, but Aquarion is wondering how. 

In an email to Patch, Aquarion Spokesman Mark Tedeschi said the company finds it interesting that the committee has offered no information on how it can achieve the amount of ‘savings’ without an agreed upon value. 

The committee  “after a 13 month study, has yet to let residents know what it believes the price of the system to be in accordance with the Charter,” Tedeschi said in an email. 

The charter, created in 1879, stipulated that Hingham would have the right to purchase the company at any time, based on a price formula laid out in the statute.

In a written statement to the Town, Asher said after the payoff of a twenty-year bond to subsidize the purchase, the savings will be on the order of $8 million a year.

From their study, the committee determined the acquisition would not affect the water rate negatively, the legal basis for the purchase was sound and robust enough to withstand challenge and the purchase would make lower and slower water rate increases possible.

Hingham Selectmen agreed to support the Hingham Water Company Acquisition Study Committee’s decision to take the steps necessary to begin a potential acquisition.  A price has not been agreed upon.

Aquarion, a subsidiary of Macquarie, an Australian investment bank, owns the water structure that serves Hingham, Hull, and about 300 customers in Cohasset.  There facility is on Main Street in Hingham.