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Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
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NEW BEDFORD — Walking up the block of Oaklawn Street next to Clark’s Cove, you can tell which houses had their lead pipes pulled out by looking for the fresh, black asphalt that interrupts the concrete sidewalk. Underneath these narrow asphalt bands lay newly installed pipes — without lead — that leave a physical reminder of the scale of the problem: Of the 41 houses on this block, 21 were flagged as having lead service lines that carried water for drinking, cooking, and bathing to the residents inside.
One of these asphalt bands points toward the home of Rosa Botelho. On a recent afternoon, she sat in her living room looking over her water bill, confused. Ever since the lead pipes were replaced, the base rate that Botelho pays for water has more than doubled. The City of New Bedford pledged to remove the lead pipes and service lines “free of charge” without “put[ting] a burden on residents,” according to an informational phone line and letters sent out to residents.
“I called the water department and said, ‘What the hell’s going on?’” said Botelho, who has owned the house since 1992. She said a representative from the city’s Department of Public Infrastructure (DPI) told her that the new pipes that she and others were receiving through the program were a different size, meaning the rates were going up.
So, after paying a base rate of $3.97 on her August bill, Botelho was faced with a $9.92 base rate on her September bill. Her monthly water bill shot up to over $100 for the first time, and it’s stayed that high since. “Don’t go saying the city picked up the tab when you didn’t tell the people the rate is going up,” Botelho said.
On neighboring Lucas Street, where 17 more homes had identified lead pipes, the same thing happened to Pam Brizida-Fraga. Her bill more than doubled from $3.81 to $9.92. “I didn’t even know about it until I just checked,” she said.
Representatives of the City of New Bedford, DPI, and the City Council did not respond to repeated attempts to ask questions about the lead service replacement program.
The city’s Superintendent of Water Dominic Galotti did not return four phone calls or two voicemails and was not available to meet when a reporter from The Light showed up at the DPI office last Wednesday. DPI Commissioner Jamie Ponte did not respond to two phone calls or a voicemail. When an email was sent to Galotti and Ponte, along with city spokesperson Jonathan Darling, neither of the DPI officials responded.
Darling, the city’s public information officer, wrote in an email that the DPI officials “have a lot on their plates” and would not say when they would be available. Darling only offered to respond to written questions shared in advance.
New Bedford has been replacing lead pipes across the city for decades. In 2022, The Light reported that there had been a dramatic slow-down in the rate that these replacements were taking place — from 891 replacements in 2018 down to 21 replacements in 2021. At the time, a spokesperson for the city similarly declined The Light’s request for an interview. However, DPI Commissioner Jamie Ponte wrote in an email at the time that the pandemic and labor shortage issues were behind the decrease in service line replacements.
In November, a letter went out from Ponte and the DPI to inform residents across the city that service line replacements were starting up. The program’s rejuvenation could be due to an $11.4 million award the city received in 2023 from the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust, a state agency aimed at improving water access and equity. The funds ultimately came from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, according to a press release.
Most of that press release focused on the “affordability” which the award made possible, with Mayor Jon Mitchell’s statement saying, “This additional support from our federal and state partners will make our improvements more affordable to ratepayers.”
Only at the bottom of the release did one public official, City Councilor Linda Morad, acknowledge that the funds really were “controlling the burden” placed on residents, not actually lessening the total burden. She said, “These critical projects are very costly and have been financed with loans that ultimately will be repaid through increases to our water and sewer ratepayers.”
Morad, like other officials, did not respond to repeated phone calls and voicemails to discuss the overall impact of the lead service replacement program on local taxpayers.
Who’s paying for the lead replacement program?
Back on Oaklawn Street, Botelho looked up over her more-than-doubled water bill. “I’d rather replace the thing than drink lead,” she said. But still, something felt wrong about her new bill. “It’s not like we did something wrong,” she said, and added that the increased costs felt like the city was “punishing the people who had these pipes.”
Other residents, like Brizida-Fraga, were simply surprised to learn their bill had gone up after the city said the lead pipe replacement was free.
The rate increases happened because earlier this year a bond was passed in City Council that allowed the current administration to borrow $34.8 million for water system improvements, “including a lead service abatement program.” The bond allows for the mayor and the City Council’s Committee on Finance to recoup funds “by local systems revenues” — which means through ratepayer or other local tax increases. No press release accompanied this measure, though it unanimously passed the City Council in August.
Last year’s $11.4 million award, according to the city’s press release, had at that time “relieved the City of 59.8% of its debt for lead service line replacement and 19.9% of its debt for wastewater collection system improvements.” Without further comment from the city, it’s unclear how the $34 million in newly approved debt for improving the water system will affect the city’s current position.
Not all ratepayers have seen the dramatic increases that Botelho found on her bill. A neighbor on Oaklawn Street, Maria Branco, also had lead service lines replaced, but saw only marginal increases to her bill. Branco noted that a new “water meter deduct” (which excludes outdoor water usage, like in pools or gardens, from more expensive sewer charges) could be counteracting rising costs on her bill.
On Lucas Street, John McCoy saw his bill go up modestly too, and he noticed that the base rate notched higher just as his lead pipes were replaced. His rate went from $5.71 to $5.96.
For residents across New Bedford, lead service replacements could continue to take place into next year. Residents can seek more information by calling the city directly through the Lead Water Service Replacement Line at 508-974-4101, or visiting the DPI, at 1105 Shawmut Ave.
There is no safe amount of lead to consume, according to public health and environmental groups, and the metal’s presence is known to increase risks to brain development in young children and is associated with serious health risks for adults, including heart disease, high blood pressure, and kidney and nervous system problems.
Boiling water does not remove lead, and residents with known lead pipes can reduce their risk by running water before using it for cooking or dinking, always using cold water for cooking or drinking, and using approved filters.
Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org
Who should pay to replace the the lead pipes?
The individual home owners?
Or all the home owners?
Should it free?
Why in hell did one person’s base rate rise from $3.97 to $9.92 and another person’s, from $5.71 to $5.96? For that matter, why the initial discrepancy of $3.97 and $5.71? According to this article, “Representatives of the City of New Bedford, DPI, and the City Council did not respond to repeated attempts to ask questions about the lead service replacement program.” Are we supposed to believe, then, that we “can seek more information by calling the city directly through the Lead Water Service Replacement Line . . . or visiting the DPI?” Well, I guess we “can seek;” but “the city” and “the DPI” are apt to hide. Thus, my question to voters is this: Why continue electing people who “did not respond to repeated attempts to ask questions” and who appoint people who also “did not respond to repeated attempts to ask questions?”
I also live on Lucas St. and my base rate also went up from $3.97 to $9.92. My bills have been all over the place since the pipes were replaced. One month I had a credit, the next month my bill more than doubled and my historical consumption graph on the back was totally different from my other bills. After calling for 3 days and getting no where I went in person. The person who helped me was very polite and explained that somehow my transmitter and my neighbor’s were the same number. It wasn’t until I got home and explained to my husband that we both realized it shouldn’t matter because there is no usage in my neighbor’s house, he is currently staying with his sister. I would like to know why does the meter rental fluctuate based on water usage. It’s a piece of equipment, does renting a cable box fluctuate depending on how much TV you watch? As we all know, at the end of the day you can’t fight City Hall.
It’s time for our Mayor and City Councillors to do their job and start helping the taxpayers, home owners, and small business owners of New Bedford. With Taxes and Sewer and Water Bills increasing again, it’s time to reform, streamline, and reduce the size of our city government to make the needed cuts to the city budget (it’s time for change).
I agree wholeheartedly with Jeff R.