A look at water and sewer rates for area communities finds that the places served by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority fall pretty much in the middle of the pack. None of the MWRA communities made the list of highest or lowest rates in the area.
The MWRA supplies full water and sewer service to Milton, Norwood, and Quincy. The agency provides partial water service and sewer service to Canton, Dedham, Stoughton, and Westwood, and sewer service alone to Braintree, Hingham, Holbrook, Randolph, Walpole, and Weymouth.
In the fiscal year that began July 1, MWRA charges to member communities rose a fairly moderate 3.8 percent. But those charges typically represent about 45 percent of the amount that communities bill their customers, and are just the first part of the story. The second part is what each town or city spends to repair or reline water mains, pay local workers’ salaries and benefits, or for special programs. Quincy, for example, has been trying to prevent unwanted inflow into the sewer system.
That’s why towns and cities paying the same rates to the MWRA have different rates - especially sewer charges - for their residents.
On that front, sewer costs ranged from Braintree’s $734 to Milton’s $1,023, based on an annual water consumption of 90,000 gallons.
MWRA spokeswoman Ria Convery said that when times were good, the Legislature routinely inserted funds for MWRA rate relief, the subsidy at one point reaching $53 million a year to mitigate increases driven by the $6.8 billion Boston Harbor cleanup.
This year, the Legislature made a token payment of $500,000, which provided $350,000 worth of rate relief.
“Given the times, we were grateful for anything,’’ Convery said.
The agency is licensed to pump as much as 350 million gallons a day from the Quabbin Reservoir, but the MWRA sold just 195 million gallons per day last year, continuing a gradual downward trend in consumption that has seen the daily number dip from 208 million gallons in 2004.
RICH FAHEY 
