Regional Water Authority representative gives annual update to Cheshire council

Tim Slocum, Cheshire’s representative to the Regional Water Authority (RWA) regional planning board, delivered the authority’s annual update to the Town of Cheshire Council on June 10, summarizing governance, ongoing capital projects and service coordination.

Slocum described the authority’s responsibilities — approving rate adjustments, authorizing projects over $2 million, adopting land‑use policies for roughly 27,000 acres of watershed property and designating a Consumer Affairs Officer to handle customer concerns. He said Cheshire’s water comes primarily from the North Cheshire well field, supplemented by wells in Hamden and pumped water from Lake Whitney, which is “soon to have its dam rebuilt” and is currently in the design phase.

He discussed a recent customer‑service transition when the RWA migrated customer billing systems; Slocum said the switch initially created transactional issues but had largely been resolved and encouraged customers to enroll in automatic payments. He also noted long‑term declines in per‑capita water use and conservation trends since RWA’s creation in 1980.

Slocum updated the council on a proposed transaction to convert Aquarian Water Company into an authority modeled on the RWA. He said the model’s legislative success enabled an acquisition being led by the Regional Water Authority and that a public‑hearing schedule on that item was beginning.

Council members asked about hazardous‑waste satellite events and testing for lead and copper; Slocum said the RWA staff would follow up on scheduling regional drop‑off events and described an ongoing test program elsewhere for lead and copper service‑line replacement that involved homeowners, utilities and regulators.

Slocum concluded by inviting comments and noting interest in continuing liaison work between the RWA and Cheshire on outages, roadwork coordination and customer services.