Water rate hike is on the way for some Hempstead Town residents

Some Hempstead Town residents will be paying more for their water in the new year under rate hikes passed by the town board earlier this month. 

The board passed a 33.1% rate increase, to be phased in over three years, with rates per 1,000 gallons going up 9.9% in 2025.

The rate hikes affect customers in the six water districts run by the town water department: East Meadow, Levittown, Roosevelt Field, Uniondale, Lido-Point Lookout and Bowling Green Estates. Though many residents get their water through commissioner-run water districts, the town provides water to more than 121,000 customers, according to the 2025 town budget.

Town spokesman Brian Devine said in an email Friday that the average customer served by the water department uses 447 gallons of water a day and will see water bills increase by 9 cents per day in 2025. That would equal a $32.85 increase for the year. Newsday calculations using the current rates and the 2025 rates show that a customer using 447 gallons a day would see their annual cost-per-gallon usage go up to $321.90 from $292.70, a $29.20 year-over-year increase.

Devine, in the email, said the rate hikes “are both necessary and prudent for the Department of Water to continue operating in a proactive manner with regards to water quantity and quality.”

The Hempstead Town Board unanimously passed the rate hikes at its Dec. 10 meeting without discussion. The board last passed a rate hike in 2014 that was phased in over three years beginning in 2015, town records show, though it’s not the most recent cost increase: On Jan. 5, 2021, the board imposed a $25 special charge on quarterly water bills. The text of the 2021 local law stated the purpose was to “defray the expenses related to needed treatment to address the removal of the emerging contaminates PFOA, PFOS and 1,4 Dioxane.”

Pearl Jacobs, president of Uniondale-based Nostrand Gardens Civic Association, said Monday that the town should not be adding charges for residents who she says have substandard water quality.

Jacobs said the special charge, which amounts to $100 a year, hasn't led to any improvement. "We have not seen any benefit at all. People are still calling me and they're still complaining about brown water coming from their faucets."

Levittown resident Eliana Fernandez said Monday the rate hike was "very frustrating."

“That’s just way too much, especially for the people who live around here that are elderly or just living paycheck to paycheck,” Fernandez said. She said the water from the faucet is sometimes a light brown. "We don’t drink the water," she said. Instead her household drinks bottled water and uses tap water for things like showers, she said.

On Monday, town spokesman Casey Sammon declined to comment on the residents' remarks and referred questions to earlier statements made last week by Devine.

Devine last week said the rate hikes are “necessary to meet the rising costs of water supply including the operating costs of new state mandated treatment systems anticipated to come online in the coming year.” Some of those increased costs come from growing prices for electricity, fuel and treatment chemicals, he said.

The rate hikes follow increases in tax levies on those six water districts, to $6.5 million in 2025 from $5.6 million in 2024, according to town budget documents, a 16.2% year-over-year increase.

The rate hike wasn’t factored into the town’s 2025 budget, Devine said. The budget set spending and revenue for the town water department at $21.1 million in 2025. Devine did not answer questions about how much additional revenue the rate hikes would bring. 

With Shari Einhorn