On July 1, 2024, the Portsmouth City Council raised the sewer rate 5% and the water rate 6%. This was the eleventh year in a row that water and sewer rates have been raised by anywhere from 2% to 6%.
As a result, in 2024, the average annual residential water and sewer bill in Portsmouth is $1,800 / year. (for 5,000 gallons / month water use, which is NHDES typical household use comparison standard). The annual sewer portion of the bill is $1,390 per year which is nearly double the average of New Hampshire’s 13 cities annual sewer charge of $723 per year.
Do Portsmouth toilets produce a particularly foul or recalcitrant brand of wastewater that needs twice the amount of treatment of other communities’ ? Or does Portsmouth’s $100 million dollar wastewater treatment plant produce Perrier for the Piscataqua?
Portsmouth certainly does live up to its big spending reputation on the water and wastewater front. (Caution, these statistics may hit you like a ton of bricks.) In the five years of FY 2019 to FY 2023, Portsmouth spent a staggering $185 million on water and wastewater projects. That is a full 60% of the city’s entire capital expenditures for 457 capital improvement plan projects over that five-year time period. Even more incredible, Portsmouth’s water and sewer enterprise funds have cash and short-term investment balances of $14 million and $41 million respectively. What are those piles of cash being saved for?
See top of page 51 in the FY 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report and the UNC New Hampshire Water and Wastewater Rates Dashboard in the links below.
Note: If you find Portsmouth’s monthly water/ sewer bill difficult to understand, the combined water & sewer rate is $22.34 per “UNIT” ($5.02 for water and $17.32 for sewer) and is based on metered drinking water use. The bill assumes a household water use (input) equals the amount of wastewater produced. (output) One unit of water equals 100 cubic feet (a cubic foot is a cube of 1 foot high, 1 foot wide, and 1 foot deep). 7.48 gallons can fill a one cubic foot container. Therefore 1 UNIT of water equals 100 times 7.48 or 748 gallons. For reference, 5,000 gallons equals 6.7 units. See link below for more USEPA information on reading your water bill.
Understanding Your Water Bill | WaterSense | US EPA
NH Water and Wastewater Rates Dashboard (unc.edu) All New Hampshire cities and towns water and sewer rates
