Nassau residents protest American Water tax refund

Nassau County residents rallied outside New York American Water’s Headquarters in Merrick as part of an ongoing protest against the company’s intended rate increase. The increase has been pending since June 2016. In that time, residents have criticized NYAW for providing them with dirty water, low pressure, low-quality service and high bills. Tempers continue to flare with the public comment period for another component of the plan nearing its end.

NYAW was recently given roughly $1 million in property tax refunds from New York State after filing a grievance for over-assessment. The company plans to use 12 percent toward its shareholders and 38 percent toward its attorneys. However, NYAW customers pay 100 percent of these property taxes through their rates, and are demanding that they receive the full reimbursement.

“We challenge these taxes in an effort to keep our operating expenses as low as possible,” said NYAW President Brian Bruce in a statement. “Over the past 10 years, New York American Water has been awarded— and returned to our customers —more than $20 million in property tax refunds.”

The Public Service Commission is allowing the company to distribute the funds how its sees fit. However, NYAW residents standing outside the company’s headquarters said that neither body is looking out for the interests of the costumers.

“Where’s the PSC?” asked Marge Harrison, of Merrick, criticizing the commission for not siding with the public on this issue. “Have they gone AWOL?”

A statement from the PSC reads that this distribution of tax refunds “benefits customers not only by relieving them of tax expense they otherwise would have continued to bear indirectly, but also by creating an incentive for the company to pursue other such opportunities on customers’ behalf in the future.”

Most of the criticism directed at NYAW’s proposal involves its intentions to raise customer’s overall rates by 8.3 percent. The public comment section on the PSC website has over 800 responses from residents protesting their decision. On Feb. 2, Long Island Clean Air, Water and Soil co-founder Claudia Borecky wrote a letter to the New York State Senate and Assembly asking them to rally with the public against NYAW. Ultimately, Borecky requests that customers of NYAW should be exempt from paying 100 percent of the company’s property taxes.

In the past, LICAWS rallied with residents to put pressure on NYAW regarding a $4.5 million plan to fund research into a geothermal project at Buck School in Valley Stream. NYAW customers would fund this under the original rate hike proposal, but the company has since struck this from their plan. “It may benefit the company,” said Borecky. “But it does not benefit the residents of the entire district.”

Residents can submit their thoughts on either component of the NYAW proposal at the Public Service Commission website at www.dps.ny.gov by searching its case number. To comment on the tax reimbursement proposal, enter 16-W-0384 and to comment on the rate increase enter 16- W- 0259. The public comment period for the tax reimbursement proposal ends Feb. 10, 2017.