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Treatment timeline and settlement money: petitioners outline PFAS projects, say settlements unclear and likely multi‑year
Summary
At the Aug. 19 hearing petitioners described planned PFAS treatment projects across the systems (Mount Carmel, South Cheshire and a set of smaller projects), requested DWSRF and other low‑cost financing, and said settlement proceeds have started but are being paid over multiple years and generally tied to specific sources; petitioners agreed to l
Petitioners told PURA they have a multi‑site PFAS response underway and provided a project list for treatment, interconnections and other remedial actions. Company witnesses said two larger wellfields—Mount Carmel and South Cheshire—are the highest‑priority Connecticut projects and will be funded through a mix of internal funds, low‑cost Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) loans (with some forgiveness where eligible), and debt financing.
Petitioners provided a project list and cost estimates on the record. One attachment presented by petitioners lists a set of treatment projects the company considers necessary to comply with a 4 parts per trillion standard; petitioners estimated a subset of those projects at roughly $149.5 million (company figure for a defined list of systems) and said additional projects are in planning. Petitioners said some projects are already complete and some are in planning or design; project timing varies by system and by whether the utility will apply for DWSRF funding (which extends schedules because applications, approval, and bidding take additional months).
Company witnesses described field pilots and a pending patent application for a powdered activated carbon treatment they say can lower remediation cost at selected wellfields; petitioners said the pilot results are promising and that they plan to file patents and then evaluate broader deployment. Petitioners also described existing and planned work to identify customer‑side lead service lines and to use machine learning and meter replacement work to improve inventories.
On settlement funds, Aquarion witnesses said the company has received partial payments from nationwide PFAS class‑action programs and expects further distributions stretched over multiple years; petitioners said the administrator of those settlements is allocating payments to specific sources and that the timing and amounts to be received remain in flux. Petitioners said they have received some initial funds and that allocations are tied to source‑by‑source claims filed with settlement administrators. Witnesses said settlement proceeds will be applied to remediation projects for the sources for which they were received; they also said there are no general statutory restrictions preventing the use of settlement proceeds for remediation of the affected systems, and they will apply settlement proceeds to reduce project costs where the funds match affected sources.
The Department of Public Health, Office of Consumer Counsel, and intervenors pressed the petitioners for documentation: petitioners agreed to file additional exhibit detail on project types, timelines and the modeling behind estimated project costs and to provide breakdowns of settlement payments received and the expected timing of remaining distributions. Petitioners said that in some cases, DWSRF loan forgiveness is available and that, where it is granted, that reduces the amount that must be financed through debt and thus reduces rate impacts for customers.
PURSUES: The panel ordered petitioners to provide more detailed cost‑and‑timeline exhibits for the listed PFAS projects and a reconciliation of two different project cost spreadsheets that appeared in the record.
