October 5, 2026 Submitted By John Borger
In prior pieces, I’ve argued that lawn irrigation is severely stressing our fragile aquifer and pushing the WRWS delivery infrastructure to the danger point. I have documented how our weakly stepped, two-tier rate schedule subsidizes the lawn irrigation that leads to Level II water bans each summer and makes us an extreme outlier among peer towns.
I have explained how the massive draw-downs of our fragile aquifer due to seasonal lawn watering suction dangerous PFAS chemicals into our drinking water, how the Ipswich River catastrophe is a sobering object lesson for us, and how the Nantucket outage of June 2025 underscores that our stressed, aged system often operates in the red zone of negative safety margin, one broken pump away from a public safety emergency.
I have repeatedly urged the WRWS Commissioners to implement a universally recommended schedule of tiered rates structured to discourage waste, incentivize conservation, and relieve pressure on the system. I have explained that Hingham has in effect traded Aquarian’s investor-driven revenue maximization imperative for WRWS’s debt service revenue imperative. I have observed that, in order to implement a conservation rate schedule, WRWS may have to first decouple revenue essential to debt service from volume, thus removing the perverse incentive to maximize revenue by pumping unsustainable volumes.
As I review the 7 pieces published to date in the Anchor, I must note the absence of a single comment from our water officials. If I were wrong on any of this, I would expect corrections. Instead, silence prevails, and it is reasonable to construe that silence as tacit agreement.
But perhaps the authorities are just biding their time. Maybe they are banking on what appears to be the Town’s ultimate strategy – tying into the Quabbin Reservoir water supply. The implicit expectation seems to be that this will solve both the supply problem and the PFAS problem.
Assistant Town Administrator Art Robert has stated that Quabbin water is essential to further economic development, begging the question of whether revenue from a broadened tax base will offset the costs. Is Hingham’s Quabbin vision prudent planning, or is it official avoidance behavior? What might stand between Hingham and access to Quabbin water?
A Fly in the Quabbin Ointment – the InterBasin Transfer Act (IBTA)
A formidable barrier to Hingham accessing Quabbin water is the Massachusetts law passed in 1984 called the InterBasin Transfer Act (IBTA), M.G.L. c. 21, § 8D.
This law stipulates that, if water is to be exported out of one watershed and imported into another, the importing water authority must pass stringent regulatory reviews and obtain approvals from the MWRA Board of Directors, the MWRA Advisory Board (the communities already in the system), the Massachusetts State Legislature, and the Governor.
The most critical regulatory hurdle is the rigorous review conducted by the state’s water gatekeeper agency, the Water Resources Commission (WRC), whose ruling is dispositive.
The WRC exists because, especially in an era of persistent drought and scarcity, inter-basin transfer can potentially be the water equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The WRC Review Criteria
The WRC evaluates applications against seven Performance Standards the Interbasin Transfer Act prescribes as the criteria for review of proposed interbasin transfers, one of which examines whether the applicant uses a pricing structure that effectively incentivizes conservation.
The IBTA conservation performance standard explicitly states that a community’s water pricing must “Employ a water rate structure that encourages water conservation.”
(Note that the IBTA does not indicate that the 10-fold increase in fines and the accelerated shut-offs currently under consideration in Hingham for violators of water bans constitute an acceptable substitute for this requirement. We’ll take that up in a separate piece.)
In its reviews, the WRC also refers to key guidance in the state’s master document titled Massachusetts Water Conservation Standards. This document stipulates the following:
- A community’s water rate structure must “promote water conservation” and “reflect the true cost of water.”
- “…communities should adopt a conservation-oriented rate structure, such as an increasing block rate structure.”
- Rate schedules should be structured to target “peak seasonal demands,” specifically identifying high-volume residential usage like lawn irrigation systems as the threshold for the highest rate.
In the state’s Environmental Permitting in Coastal Massachusetts Guide, the WRC explicitly instructs towns that “Proponents should consider interbasin transfers to be a last resort after all other options within basin have been exhausted.”
The IBTA stipulates that the Commission cannot approve a transfer unless it finds that “…all practical measures to conserve water have been taken…”
How Will Hingham Fare on the Conservation Standard?
To determine whether Hingham prices its water to incentivize conservation and deter waste, the WRC would need only review comparative data from peer towns.
As the following data shows, Hingham’s top-tier water rate is so low that a local homeowner can dump massive volumes of precious, treated drinking water onto a lawn for less than a quarter of what it would cost in Lincoln—and less than a third of what it costs right next door in Scituate.
WHAT DOES 100 CCF OF WATER COST AT EACH TOWN’S TOP TIER RATE?
Based on the current highest tier of each municipal pricing structure; 100 CCF (74,800 gallons) is the volume of water consumed to water the lawn of a median-sized lot in Hingham 2X per week for 6 weeks:
- LINCOLN: $3,077.00
- SCITUATE: $1,966.00
- CONCORD: $1,287.00 (plus an upfront $1,380 registration fee)
- HINGHAM (WRWS): $473.00
Two Further Comparisons Highlight Hingham’s Failure to Incentivize Conservation
If the WRC needed additional evidence, it could reference two other water systems’ rate schedules to evaluate Hingham’s weakly stepped, two-tier pricing structure – Wellesley and Boston.
The comparison would be especially illuminating because it would highlight that Hingham is an extreme outlier when viewed against the rate structures of these two water systems, which already have access to the supposedly boundless supply of the Quabbin Reservoir.
Are Boston and Wellesley pricing water as a cheap commodity in endless supply from Quabbin? Or have they structured their rate schedules to strongly encourage conservation? Let’s see:
Wellesley (Wellesley Water Division) – Gets 65% of its water from Quabbin, and pumps the remaining 35% from local wells.
Wellesley uses two separate seasonal schedules, one for November through April (the “winter” season), and one for May through October (the “summer” season).
The winter schedule is essentially similar to Hingham’s year-round schedule, comprised of two tiers with a moderate difference between tiers. This is of little consequence, since nobody waters lawns during the winter season.
The summer season schedule, however, is a 5-tier structure in which the top tier rate is fully three times the lowest tier rate. Wellesley’s summer pricing deliberately targets heavy, suburban lawn irrigation.
Currently, a Hingham ratepayer irrigating a lawn with 100 CCF over six weeks pays $473; under Wellesley’s summer schedule, the cost would be $1,396 – 2.8 times as much!
Wellesley’s sharply escalating summer rates are designed to make operating automatic, high-capacity lawn irrigation systems cost-prohibitive. This schedule of rates forces affluent homeowners to sparingly use carefully calibrated smart-watering systems or face astronomical summer water bills. Even then, costs are considerable.
Boston – Gets 100% of its water from Quabbin and uses a 6-tier schedule, with significantly increasing water rates for each tier.
The Boston rate schedule is integrated with its sewer rates, which reinforces its impact, since the sewer system levies charges on the principle of water in equals water out. In tandem, Boston’s combined water and sewer rates are calibrated so that the highest usage tier is almost double the lowest (1.89 times higher, versus Hingham’s 1.27 multiple).
Boston’s first few volume blocks cover basic, essential indoor household needs (cooking, sanitation) and light outdoor use at a highly affordable rate. Once a property enters the higher volume tiers (which represent heavy outdoor usage, leaks, or commercial irrigation), the cost per CCF (100 cubic feet) increases significantly.
Hingham Will Likely Fail the WRC’s Water Conservation Standard
Absent the recommended reformulation of the current WRWS pricing structure, Hingham will almost certainly fail to meet the WRC’s water conservation standard.
Compounding the impact, Hingham is part of a consortium of seven communities seeking MWRA tie-in: Abington, Cohasset, Hanover, Hingham, Norwell, Rockland, and Scituate.
The required infrastructure buildout will include a massive pipeline estimated to cost anywhere from $130 to $240 million. Hingham’s failing score on conservation would threaten the viability and timeline of the consortium’s entire regional water project. The negative impacts would likely reverberate across the South Shore for several years.
The Quabbin Dream Fades…
The WRC has full statutory power to withhold approval of an application indefinitely until a town modifies its behavior.
There is ample precedent for WRC denials, prime examples being Wilmington in 2007 (penalized for excessive leakage rate), Bedford in 1992 (held up for inadequate conservation and rate structure), and the landmark Charles River Basin Elm Bank decision of April 1992.
In that case, the WRC withheld approval from the consortium of Natick, Needham, Wellesley, and Dover precisely because their rate schedules shielded rate payers from the full environmental costs of pumping and failed to incentivize conservation.
If the WRWS Commissioners persist in refusing to implement the steep, volume-driven rate tiers proven to deter waste, the state can delay Hingham’s connection indefinitely, driving home that the Town will not be allowed to import water until it stops subsidizing high-volume irrigation with bargain rates.
Summary – What Will It Take?
If WRWS persists in remaining an extreme outlier among peers, clinging to extraordinarily low rates for lawn irrigation, it will almost surely fail the WRC review.
This will push the Quabbin strategy far into the indefinite future. Pristine Quabbin water will not be available to help Hingham comply with EPA PFAS standards.
Hingham’s consortium partners will not be happy, and could well decide to proceed without us. Or, the WRC might greenlight the other towns but withhold approval of Hingham’s tie-in.
The WRC’s likely denial will greatly intensify pressure on the WRWS Commissioners to finally take the universally recommended, common-sense steps to remediate our dysfunctional status quo.
Is this what will be needed to end Hingham’s tragedy of the…
– John Borger
John Borger has lived in Hingham for 37 years and has been active in the Town’s fight
against climate change and its quest for sustainability.