On Jan. 1, Long Beach Township will begin using the new water meters installed throughout the municipality over the past couple of years. The township had planned to set the residential water base rate at $650, with the first 15,000 gallons per quarter at no cost, but due to push-back from homeowners, officials decided just to raise both the water and sewer rates by 10% for next year.

As Mayor Joseph Mancini explained, “We had a lot of opposition to the (originally proposed) increase,” with a number of people speaking out at the last board of…