Joe Stafford’s T-shirt is emphatic: “No way, Aqua. No means No. What part of No don’t you understand?”

“This company is a predator,” water customer Joe DiMarco said at Tuesday’s authority board meeting at Neumann College in Aston. He cited rate hikes and profit margins Aqua has requested  and gotten  from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission in other towns where it has taken over water systems.

Aqua typically charges more than 40 percent above what Chester Water charges customers in nearby towns, according to rate data collected by the authority.

“The deal, previously thought dead, has new life,” utility analyst Ryan M. Connors wrote last week in a report to investor clients of Boenning & Scattergood in West Conshohocken after Aqua raised the offer anew at a meeting earlier this month. To sweeten its offer, Aqua has taken out full-page ads in local newspapers promising to keep water rates at today’s levels for 10 years and to offer Chester Water workers jobs if it is able to privatize the authority.

To read the complete story click here. 

[uam_ad id=”54875″]