AGAWAM — Water rates will nearly double in Agawam this summer, following supply cost increases from the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission.

A split Agawam City Council voted new rates for water and sewer usage, as well as higher water and sewer connection charges, at its June 6 meeting. Effective July 1, the cost to residential water users will increase from $1.90 per 100 cubic feet to $2.95, with a further hike to $3.69 for usage exceeding 2,000 cubic feet in one quarter-year.

The cost for water discharged into the sewers will also increase July 1, from $4.01 to $5.01 per 100 cubic feet.

“If I could preface overall, it sucks, it really does, to have to sit up here and approve a rate increase like this. But the reality is, it’s necessary,” said Council President Christopher Johnson, adding that rates for Agawam would still be lower than many other communities in the Pioneer Valley.

Councilor Paul Cavallo argued that the price hikes were unavoidable because “we don’t own our water. We have to purchase it like other communities do.”

Agawam purchases both drinking water and wastewater treatment services from the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission, which serves several neighboring towns in addition to the city of Springfield. The council cited rate hikes from Springfield as causing the need to increase rates in Agawam.

The resolution passed with a 9-2 vote. Councilors Cecilia Calabrese and George Bitzas voted no.

The original proposal called for a second set of rate increases to take effect in June 2024, raising rates to $3.68 per 100 cubic feet for residential water usage, and $6.27 per 100 cubic feet for sewer. In a 6-2 vote, the council adopted an amendment from Councilor Dino Mercadante that stops those increases unless the City Council votes for them separately.

Councilor Gerald Smith was among a majority of councilors who expressed concern over the financial burden these increases would place on citizens of Agawam, especially its elderly residents living on fixed incomes.

He shared an anecdote about how he’d witnessed two elderly women in a Stop & Shop deliberating over if they could afford a can of black olives, priced at $2.19, before putting them back on the shelf.

“Maybe next time,” recalled Smith, who himself remembered the price of black olives being only half that when he had last purchased them several months prior.

To help alleviate the financial burden on residents, the council passed amendments to delay the due date on both water and sewer bills by 15 days. Bills will now be due 45 days after they are issued, and considered late 60 days after issue.

In addition to an increase in rate fees for water and sewage usage, the council approved fee hikes for new connections to the city’s water and sewer systems.

“It’s the administration’s desire to have those charges actually reflect the cost. Otherwise, if it costs the department $10 to connect with the user and we’re only charging $5, the ratepayers make up the other $5,” said Johnson. “This way we’re trying to accurately reflect the actual cost of providing new services so that the ratepayers aren’t subsidizing, and the new user is subsidizing instead.”

This article was edited June 16, 2022, to include the vote tally and correct an error about the status of the proposed 2024 rate hikes.