Aqua America Inc. recently announced that its Pennsylvania subsidiary acquired the approximately 1,250-connection wastewater assets of East Bradford Township, Chester County for $5 million.
The acquisition is Aqua Pennsylvania’s second to close under fair market valuation legislation, which encourages the consolidation of the water and wastewater industry and allows resources to be shared across a larger service area.
“I’d like to thank the community leaders of East Bradford Township for having the confidence to entrust their residents’ wastewater service to Aqua,” Aqua Pennsylvania President Marc Lucca said. “We’re proud to have the opportunity to now provide wastewater service to our East Bradford water customers, which enables us to offer greater economies of scale and operational efficiencies. We look forward to this additional service opportunity.”
Aqua Pennsylvania has three other fair market value asset purchase agreements in place, including New Garden Township, Chester County and Cheltenham and East Norriton townships in Montgomery County. Aqua Pennsylvania also has an asset purchase agreement with the Borough of Phoenixville, Chester County. When closed, these agreements, along with East Bradford, will collectively allow the company to add more than 19,000 additional customers.
On July 25, Aqua Pennsylvania acquired the Limerick Township, Montgomery County wastewater system using Act 12, adding more than 5,400 customer connections.
On Oct. 23, Aqua also announced that it would acquire Pittsburgh-based natural gas company Peoples for $4.275 billion. When this acquisition closes, Aqua will add 740,000 customers in Western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia to its family of companies. The acquisition is expected to close in mid-2019.