By Adam Swift
The town’s water rates are increasing by 2.25 percent for Fiscal Year 2026, according to Town Manager Tony Marino.
At last week’s town council meeting, Marino said the new water/sewer rate for FY26 will be $26.84, a small increase over the FY25 rate of $26.25.
“The average family of four, if they use 60 gallons per day per person, it’s $69 over the whole year, 80 gallons per day, $92.12 per year and … 100 gallons, $115 for the whole year,” said Marino.
Moving forward, Marino said the town will continue to use the water and sewer retained earnings to fund unanticipated capital projects in FY26.
“Between the capital funds, including the FY26 budget, we put in $220,000 this year,” said Marino. “We will continue to look at bonding opportunities to fund the FY26 capital projects and we’ll be back in front of the town council in the next few months for the water authorizations for the exercising the valves and doing the dual valve replacements that we started last year and want to continue and do more of that this year.”
Town Council President Jim Letterie noted that the town’s water loss has been down significantly in the past several years due in part to the infrastructure work completed in Winthrop.
“Over the last dozen years or so we’ve done about 9.5 miles of infrastructure which has helped that,” he said. “Another thing that is talked about a lot this time of the year is the hydrants being open, which is part of the lost water. It’s not a fire issue, it’s more of a stirring up the water quality thing, especially with the hotter temperatures.”
Public Works Director Steve Calla said that in the warmer weather, there is chlorine in the distribution system.
“That is natural, and in the warmer weather, if the water sits stagnant, the chlorine residuals drop off, it’s just chemistry,” said Calla. “Less chlorine residuals makes the water supply more susceptible to harmful bacteria we don’t want. Seeing the hydrants flushing, we have shut them off since, but they have flushed for several weeks just to move stagnant water and keep water temperatures in the system up.”
Starting in September, Calla said the town will be required to do unidirectional flushing, with crews going townwide and opening hydrants and moving that water.
“That is part of our DEP permit, that’s a requirement, it’s not something we can say no to because we don’t want to waste water,” said Calla.
Overall, Calla said unaccounted water use is down significantly from a rate of about 26 percent around a decade ago to about 15 percent currently.
“Hats off to all of you who have continued to fund all these infrastructure projects,” said Calla. “There is a lot more to do, but you can see what the investment has done.”