Opinion ID: 2355085
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Well search expenses

Text: The Commission allowed the Company to recover from its Wiscasset customers over a five-year period the $125,000 cost of a well search effort in that division. The Town of Wiscasset argues that a memorandum of agreement signed by the Company and the Town required the Company to bear those costs. The agreement, however, is far from clear. It can be fairly read simply to require the Company to provide the funds for the search in the first instance, without resolving whether the Company's customers or its shareholders, as against the Town, would ultimately bear the well search expense. In any event, the agreement does not operate to divest the Commission of its normal regulatory power to consider for ratemaking purposes costs actually incurred by a utility. By its express terms the agreement was subject to the approval of the Commission, the Maine Department of Human Services, and Wiscasset's legislative body, none of which agencies has acted to approve. The Town of Wiscasset also argues that the Commission committed an abuse of discretion in allowing the Company to recover the costs of this well search before the water quality problem in Wiscasset has been solved. We reject the Town's argument because, as the Commission found, the well search was a completed and distinct phase of the broader water improvement efforts in Wiscasset.