The agenda for next week’s special session of the General Assembly is expected to include legislation that would allow the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority to make a bid for the purchase of the Aquarion Water Company.
The Regional Water Authority was created by a special act of the General Assembly in 1977 and would need new enabling legislation to expand outside its current territory of New Haven and about 20 suburbs.
“It gives them a chance to compete,” said Senate President Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven.
Eversource Energy announced in February it was exploring selling its Bridgeport-based Aquarion Water subsidiary, a move that could bring needed cash and limit regulatory exposure in Connecticut.
House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said the Regional Water Authority issue was the only late addition to the call for what is expected to be a brief special session for the Senate on Wednesday and House on Thursday.
A bill declaring a climate crisis that passed the House and died without a vote in the regular session that ended May 8 is not expected to be included in the call for the session to be issued by Gov. Ned Lamont.
Kevin Watsey, the director of public affairs for the RWA, was not immediately available for comment on the authority’s ambitions for a major expansion.
Looney said he supported giving the authority a chance at acquiring Aquarion, saying maintaining local control over a major utility would be good public policy.
Aquarion is one of the seven largest investor-owned water utilities in the U.S., with 236,000 customer accounts in 72 cities and towns, most of them in Connecticut, and 13 in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Eversource acquired Aquarion for $1.675 billion in 2017. It had net income of $33 million on a $1.3 billion base rate in 2023.
The RWA had a net operating income of $43 million and operating revenues of $131.8 million in 2023.