ISELIN, NJ, Dec. 19, 2007 -- Middlesex Water Company has announced that Tidewater Utilities Inc., the company's wholly owned subsidiary in Delaware, has entered into an agreement to provide water service to the residents of the Town of Ocean View, Delaware, beginning in the first quarter of 2008.
In addition to providing service to the Town's 670 residential and commercial service connections, Tidewater has also contracted with the Town to provide all billing, meter reading and water service maintenance functions. To assist the Town of Ocean View in its desire to retain ownership of their newly constructed distribution system, Tidewater transferred ownership of a franchise encompassing a portion of the community for $0.4 million. Tidewater is also serving as the source of water supply to the Town of Ocean View. The agreement further demonstrates Tidewater's commitment to provide practical and cost-effective solutions to meet the needs of municipal and commercial clients.
Tidewater has also recently completed construction, and has begun operation of a wastewater treatment plant serving the residential community of Country Grove in Sussex County, DE. Tidewater is now providing service to 28 homes in the community and will serve nearly 200 wastewater customers as well as 200 water customers upon build-out of the additional homes planned in that community. Country Grove residents will be served by a new water plant being built by Tidewater.
"We are pleased we were able to develop a solution for the Town of Ocean View that met the Town's objectives in retaining ownership of their utility infrastructure, while allowing our company the opportunity to provide the residents with high quality water service," said Dennis W. Doll, Middlesex Water President & CEO. "It is also very encouraging that in spite of the recent decline in housing starts on a national level, we continue to see reasonably strong interest for both water and wastewater services from developers and municipalities in the Mid-Atlantic States where we are concentrating our growth efforts," added Doll.
Middlesex Water Company, organized in 1897, provides regulated and unregulated water and wastewater utility services in New Jersey and Delaware through various subsidiary companies.
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