Terry Gentile Sauro agrees that water is a valuable resource, but when the Nonantum homeowner recently got a quarterly water bill for $4,566, it made her question just how valuable it truly is.
Sauro, who has lived in the village on the north side of Newton for all of her 70-plus years, said she had been expecting the June water bill since it always comes after the tax bill. But when she opened it and saw how much she owed, she said, “I immediately took a deep breath and I called the city.”
Sauro said her water bill from the same billing period last year was $202.
She says she was told by city officials that from May 17 until the end of June, there was water running constantly in her single-family home.
“Constant water running? How could that be?” she said. “I live in the house. I would hear the water running.”
Sauro later learned from her irrigation system company that there was a cracked valve underneath the system that would not be easily detected.
As for why she wasn’t notified of the abnormally high water usage by the city, the reason appears to come down to new meters installed throughout Newton last year through a company called Neptune, headquartered in Alabama, which uses a new software system to measure water usage.
Josh Morse, chief operating officer for the city of Newton, said Neptune has an alert system through a portal that residents can access to detect unusually high usage. However, they need to sign into the portal.
Under the city’s old system, an alert was sent to the city’s water department, which, according to Morse, would typically result in a staffer reaching out to the homeowner.
Sauro says she hadn’t signed up because she wasn’t aware of the online alert system. Because it’s an extra step, she’s asked the city to provide assistance for seniors who may not be tech savvy, and Morse says the city may include a “how-to” video with new water bills.
Meanwhile, Sauro filed for an abatement with the city, and submitted a paid receipt of $500 from her irrigation company showing the leak has been fixed. Now she’s waiting to see what the city will do.
Morse said he’s trying to get Neptune to alert residents in some way even if they haven’t signed into the portal.
“People who sign up for those Neptune systems get alerts for any kind of critical events,” Morse said. “Water leaks, increased water usage, that kind of stuff. As is common in many communities ... there’s an implementation phase, so not everybody signs up right away. It tends to happen over a period of time,” he said.
Are Newton water bills too high?
Robert Coppola, who lives in Auburndale, hasn’t seen the kind of astronomically high water bill due to a leak that Sauro did. But the manager of 18 rental properties throughout Newton said he’s recently gotten quarterly water bills that are thousands of dollars, almost as much as his property taxes.
Coppola signed into Neptune’s alert system, and said the alerts for extra high water usage are delayed by nearly a day. But he just believes the cost of water is too high, period.
He said he had hoped that once the new meters by Neptune were installed, it would fix the problem of exorbitant water bills, but it hasn’t.
Neptune did not respond to a request for comment by GBH News.
“I’m still getting crazy bills. I mean, one of my houses in Newton Corner, I’m getting bills, $3,600 a quarter. A couple other houses, they’re almost $2,000 a quarter. And you talk about just regular two-family houses, you know, maybe a family of three or four living on each floor,” he said.
According to a comparison of water and sewer rates among MWRA communities on the City of Waltham website, in 2025, Newton was among the cities with the highest annual rates behind Melrose, Milton and Reading.
Newton’s water rates for 2026 starts at a combined rate of $21.20 per hundred cubic feet (HCF) — $8.32 for water and $12.88 for sewer — for the lowest usage tier. Those rates include a combined increase of about $3 since 2020.
While Coppola says he’s heard more complaints over the past year about water bills in the city, Morse said the city has always gotten questions about water bills, and he doesn’t know if the number has increased in recent years. Morse did not say whether other residents have had problems with abnormally high bills due to the change in the alert system for potential leaks.
Morse said the average annual increase in water, sewer, and stormwater rates in recent years has stayed steady at about 3.9% a year.
The city does not increase the rates to get people to use less water, Morse said, and rates are increased solely to maintain the infrastructure both locally and for shared costs with the MWRA.
“The city does not, and is not legally allowed to, use any revenue from the water, sewer, and stormwater rates for anything by maintaining those enterprise systems,” Morse wrote in an email. “All revenue that comes in from the bills goes directly towards providing potable water and maintaining our water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure.”
If a water bill goes unpaid, municipalities have the authority to place a lien on the property.
Neptune, Morse said, is supporting a lot of communities in the state because they offer a good product interface for consumers. But he said he agrees that the city needs to offer assistance especially to senior citizens to help them sign up for alerts.
Morse said every case needs to be evaluated individually, and if there is an unusual water bill, residents should reach out to city hall.
If there is documentation of a water leak, they may be able to eliminate the sewer charges, Morse said, and have the customer just pay for the water, but each case is different.
“Not paying the bill is not a great idea,” Morse said. “But what I would say is, as soon as they get it, they don’t have to immediately pay for it. They should give us a call so that we can talk them through it.”
