How Does Your Community Compare?
For the past three decades, the Advisory Board has been tracking the retail rates for 60 MWRA communities and many out-of-system communities as well. Every year, the survey gives the communities and the ratepayers a chance to compare their own rates to those of their neighbors. They can also see the long-term trends of their rate history. The input from all of the communities makes the survey rich in information and continually the most requested Advisory Board publication.
For the 2023 calendar year, using the AWWA standard of 120 hundred cubic feet (HCF) per household usage annually, the average combined water and sewer bill for MWRA communities was $1,919. This is an increase of 5.5% from last year’s combined bill of $1,835. Additionally, the Advisory Board tracks retail rates factoring in local, state, and federal data. When using this data, the average household usage in the MWRA service area is estimated to be 68.1 HCF a year with an average combined bill of $1,012.
The survey compiles water and sewer rates for nearly 300 non-MWRA communities across Massachusetts. The average annual water bill was $744.61 and the average annual sewer bill was $1,026.81. These averages exclude water-only and sewer-only communities. From Abington to Yarmouth, we strive to record water and sewer data for every community in the Commonwealth.
A selection of 26 different cities across the United States were also included in the Comparative Residential Water and Sewer Rates for U.S. Cities section of the survey with an average annual water bill of $710.01 and an average sewer bill of $933.28. The average combined water and sewer bill for select U.S. cities was $1,643.28. |
