Portland Water District
Greater Portland regional service area
Population reference
135,068
Billing detail
Broad public detail found
Official destination
Open provider website ↗Provider-specific findings
Billing and account research from public material
Provider-specific research notes are displayed separately from fields that contain only an unavailable-information marker. Read qualifiers in each note and verify current account terms with the provider.
- Billing frequency
- Most single-family residential customers are billed quarterly and their meters are read every three months; some accounts are bimonthly or monthly. The District’s terms also allow monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, or seasonal billing.
- Rate structure
- FY27 rates effective July 1, 2026 use a daily base charge plus metered volumetric water and sewer charges. Water is $8.833 per ccf (748 gallons); residential sewer is $14.24 per ccf; the quarterly base is $0.8906 per day, and the 90-day minimum bill is $40.08. A residential flood-safety fee is $0.04 per dwelling unit per day.
- Residential cost reference
- Approximately $267.95 for a typical 90-day bill at 15 ccf (about 11,220 gallons, or 5 ccf/month) before stormwater/other property charges: $132.50 water volume, $213.60 residential sewer volume, about $80.15 quarterly base, and $3.60 flood-safety fee. Because PWD bills most single-family accounts quarterly, a 5,000-gallon monthly comparison is best represented as a quarterly bill rather than a monthly invoice.
- Wastewater and sewer calculation
- Most customers do not have a separate wastewater meter, so sewer volume is related to metered water use; depending on account type, PWD may use winter water use to calculate sewer charges. FY27 residential sewer volume is $14.24 per ccf. The District also bills municipal sewer charges in some communities as collection agent, so local municipality rules can affect the final wastewater amount.
- Meter reading
- PWD is replacing nearly all 55,000 meters with Sensus non-mechanical AMI meters using a secure FlexNet network; installations began in October 2025 and continue over three years. The planned portal supports daily or hourly usage, alerts, and leak detection; legacy single-family reads occur every three months.
- New-account deposit
- Deposits are governed by Maine PUC Chapter 660; the PWD terms state the amount is based on basic service and deposits earn interest according to Chapter 870. The reviewed current page does not expose a universal residential dollar amount or credit-check waiver.
- Activation or transfer fee
- $22.20 new-customer activation fee when a change to an existing account creates an additional customer-account record. Start-service requests require 48 hours excluding weekends and holidays; PWD also states an activation fee of $25 on its online start-service form, so customers should confirm the applicable current charge when requesting service.
Context, not a score
How documentation coverage compares
This profile
100%
overview fields with research notes
Maine
40%
records with any overview detail
National index
50%
records with any overview detail
Coverage measures what this directory documented. It does not measure service quality, affordability, or regulatory compliance.
Research record
Broad public detail found
7 of 7 fields in this section contain provider-specific public detail in dataset August 1, 2026.
Documented
100%
Primary verification routes
- Portland Water District public website ↗
Provider-controlled destination used to confirm current customer instructions.
- EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System ↗
Federal background on public water-system records and their limitations.