A screenshot from the March 4 hearing showing water rates in Lincoln and other towns (click to enlarge).
Lincoln water rates are expected to rise by 10% in each of the next four years as the town embarks on a project to replace aging water mains. Voters will also be asked to approve an additional $6.79 million in capital spending in fiscal 2026.
This summer, the town will start a multi-year project to replace the water main that runs from the top of the hill on Bedford Road just south of Hilliard Road down to Five Corners and then under Lincoln Road to Route 117, although water flow rates south of Codman Road are currently acceptable, Water Superintendent Darin LaFalam said in the March 4 public hearing on water rates (video here; passcode is s+=p.5&u).
The existing cast-iron main under Lincoln Road dating from 1927 has significant mineral deposits inside it, with the result that water flow through the center of town is “greatly reduced,” and booster pumps had to be installed as part of the Lincoln School renovation project to achieve acceptable fire protection, he said. The new pipes will be made of cement-lined ductile iron, which will not accumulate deposits.
Most of the $6.79 million will have to come from bonding, assuming that two-thirds of residents approve at Town Meeting on March 29. The town recently learned it will get $430,000 for the project through a state Catalyst Communities grant for which Lincoln qualified by rezoning last year to comply with the Housing Choice Act. The town will apply for another grant in FY2026.
A year ago, voters approved $2.2 million in borrowing for the first pipe segment down to Five Corners, which is out to bid now. The original plan was to spread the work over four years, but the Water Department reconsidered and now hopes to do all the work in the summers of 2025 and 2026 (the least disruptive time of year since school is out and traffic is lighter overall).
“We were going to break down the project into what I guess at the time I found were emotionally tolerable bite-size pieces of $2.2 million, but we realized we would continue to interfere with the towns’ traffic right up Lincoln Road for four summers in a row,” LaFalam said.
The public hearing will conclude at the next Water Commission meeting on Tuesday, March 11 at 8:00am. Click here to join via Zoom.
While the annual rate increases will undoubtedly make many customers unhappy, LaFalam noted that other towns in the area have it even worse. Rates are also going up this year by 10% in Bedford and Maynard, 10.6% in Littleton, and 12.5% in Concord. Lincoln was required by the state DEP to raise rates by 3% last year, but rates did not go up in the three years before that.
A fairer comparison would be to towns that are the same size as Lincoln, since the larger the town, the greater the economy of scale, he said. By that measure, a Lincoln household water bill for using 70,000 gallons per year ($676 now vs. $744 proposed) is on the lower end of the list, whereas it’s $1,058 in Dover and a whopping $1,536 in Topsfield.
Water costs are rising everywhere due to “ever-tightening regulations,” especially with the recent issue of PFAS in drinking water, as well as “the challenge of unaddressed or deferred maintenance,” he said.
Almost 14% of Lincoln’s water distribution system is past its expected useful life; in 10 years that figure will be 36%, according to LaFalam. “We really need to get started,” he said. “It might be 10 years before can afford another water main project. If we do 2.5 miles every 10 years, we’re looking at over 200 years to replace all the water mains in town.”