By Joe Kelly

The proposal to convert the Aquarion Water Company into a quasi-public authority has gotten a reprieve. The plan was rejected in November 2025 by Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) about a year after it was put up for sale by its parent company, Eversource. Connecticut Superior Court Judge Matthew Budzik said the PURA decision was wrong and remanded the deal back to PURA for further deliberations.

Aquarion is Connecticut’s largest water company, serving 59 municipalities across the state, including Norfolk. Eversource bought Aquarion for $1.67 billion in 2017 but now wants to sell it to an entity set up by the New Haven-based South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority, also known as the RWA, in a deal worth roughly $2.4 billion. The newly established entity, the Aquarion Water Authority, would share an 11-member board with the RWA. PURA objected to this saying the governance structure would result in conflicts of interest among the board members and therefore was “unworkable.”

In appealing the PURA decision, attorneys for Eversource and the RWA argued that the governance structure for the new authority was dictated by the Connecticut state legislature in 2024 when it passed the enabling statute permitting the new authority. The judge accepted that argument, declaring that PURA does not have the authority to overrule acts of the legislature. However, the judge also ruled that PURA could require increased funding for the Office of Consumer Affairs that would be responsible for advocating on behalf of Aquarion’s customers if the sale goes through. The judge’s decision means the deal now goes back to PURA for another round of deliberations.