After years of failed negotiations with the city of East Providence over a backup water supply to the East Bay, the Bristol County Water Authority is moving forward with plans to build a pipeline through EP, with or without that city’s cooperation.

The project will be funded by sharp rate increases charged to BCWA customers over the next decade.

The BCWA Board of Directors voted unanimously April 20 to install a 24-inch pipeline from the Pawtucket city line to the BCWA connector in East Providence, where the water could then be redistributed throughout Bristol, Warren and Barrington. The pipeline will serve as the backup supply the water authority and the three towns it services have been seeking for years.

The authority’s primary source of water comes from Providence Water and flows through a pipe beneath the Providence River to the same BCWA connector on Pawtucket Avenue in East Providence. The pipeline, which is protected by a tunnel under the river, was installed in 1998 and is “in relatively good shape,” according to BCWA Executive Director Pamela Marchand. Still, a backup is badly needed, she said.

“The whole issue is you never know what can happen to the water supply,” Ms. Marchand said. “We need an alternative; another backup in case something happens.”

The backup pipeline would be able to supply four million gallons of water a day, an adequate amount for the three towns,” Ms. Marchand said. The only other option should the Providence supply ever be disrupted would be for the BCWA to turn to its 1908 processing plant, which draws water from Massachusetts. That old system could not supply potable water, however, unless production is cut to less than 1 million gallons a day, short of the county’s needs, she said.

“It would need to be boiled unless we limit the supply” to treat it, Ms. Marchand said. “We would still need another source.”

The Pawtucket source is the answer, she said, one with which the authority had hoped East Providence would assist. A 2013 CDM-Smith study on water supplies in the region recommended a 30-inch pipe be built from Pawtucket to the connection, at a cost of about $27 million. East Providence has repeatedly balked at partnering with BCWA, so the authority voted to move ahead with the 24-inch line at a cost of about $20 million. The authority has also had failed negotiations with the state for access to water infrastructure funds.

“We are still working with the state and East Providence, but the board had to say we’re going to just do it,” Ms. Marchand said. “We had been negotiating to do it with East Providence, but they’ve had a lot going on. Water has not been the highest on their list.”

The BCWA will still be able to install the pipe on the mostly state roads between the Pawtucket line and the Pawtucket Avenue connector, but Ms. Marchand noted the authority is still hoping to partner with the city.

Without that partnership, the BCWA will be left paying the entire bill, funded by rate increases to customers over the next decade. The project will add 1.25 percent per year to four of the 10 years of rate increases the authority had already planned for infrastructure and maintenance. After a 3.25 percent increase in water bills in 2018, rate payers will be hit with three straight years of 4.75 percent increases, followed by a 4.5 percent hike in 2022. After that, water rates will continue to increase at an average of 4 percent a year through 2027.

Ms. Marchand said she has not yet heard from water customers about the planned rate increases. “We haven’t advertised it yet,” she said. “We wanted to meet with the councils, then get the information out to our rate payers.”

The water authority is slated to meet with town council members from Barrington, Warren and Bristol on May 23. It hopes to begin with phase 1 of the project within the next few months, with the bulk of the work beginning in 2018. The full project is expected to last about six years.