Shareholders of Camden, New Jersey-based American Water Works and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania-based Essential Utilities, which owns the Aqua water and sewer companies, voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to merge and create a combined company with nearly $30 billion in yearly water and sewer sales.

More than 99% of the 161 million American Water shares that were voted were cast in favor of the deal, the company told the Securities & Exchange Commission. Essential’s online proposal to merge was approved by around 95% voting shareholders.

The planned combination of these rivals, which have competed for more than 100 years to manage water and sewer for the small number of U.S. communities that allow for-profit operators, still needs approval from state public utility commissions.

The combined companies’ sales are concentrated in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In suburban Philadelphia, Aqua serves West Chester, northern Delaware County, parts of Lower Bucks, and Main Line communities. American Water serves Abington, King of Prussia, Norristown, Phoenixville, and nearby towns.

New Jersey American Water serves towns along the PATCO rail line in Camden County, in northern and central Burlington County, and in Shore communities such as Absecon and Ocean City. Aqua New Jersey has customers in the three suburban South Jersey counties and at the Shore.

American Water’s 14 million U.S. customers include systems in 12 other states, and on 18 U.S. military bases. Essential has around 3 million customers, including systems in six other states, and Pittsburgh-based Peoples Gas, which serves 750,000 in western Pennsylvania and Kentucky.

American Water is already the nation’s largest private operator of water and sewer systems, and the deal will make it a larger player in competition with Florida-based NextEra Water Group and France-based Veolia’s U.S. operations, among other private systems that have been seeking to expand.

A separate vote on an Essential executive pay package drew some opposition, with only around 75% approving.

That package included more than $17 million in severance compensation and stock grants for departing Essential CEO Christopher H. Franklin, plus medical benefits and up to three years’ professional assistance helping him land another job, plus millions more for his four top deputies.

The merged company’s larger size, as big as many of the leading natural-gas companies that dominate utility stock-index funds, will boost its visibility to investors, John C. Griffith, the American Water chief executive who will run the combined companies, said in announcing the deal last fall.

The companies disclosed the approvals Tuesday afternoon and said more details on the vote and their plans would come later this week.

Deal backers say the combination should enable Griffith to cut management costs, boost profits, drive up the share price, and could ease pressure to keep raising water rates.

Regulators in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are weighing the company’s latest rate increase requests. American Water’s New Jersey affiliate is asking the state Board of Public Utilities for an average 10% water and 8% sewer rate hike on Jan. 16 for 2.9 million customers, which it said would fund improvements to aging water and sewer systems. Customers would pay an average of $18 more a month.

Pennsylvania’s Public Utility Commission said last month that it would consider the company’s request to boost water and sewer rates on 2.4 million customers by an average 15%, or $20 a month.

Critics had urged Essential to seek rival buyers to drive up the share price and shareholder profits from the sale, noting that both stocks had dropped after the merger was proposed last year.

Tim Quast, founder of Colorado-based ModernIR, a consultant the companies hired to help explain the merger, said share price declines are now typical, even for merger-target companies like Essential whose shares command a premium from buyers like American Water because index-fund investors such as Vanguard and BlackRock tend not to buy more shares of merging companies until a deal is completed.

Even after long competition from U.S. and foreign utility owners, private water companies serve only about one in six Americans. In recent years, customers of public utilities serving parts of Chester, Delaware and Bucks Counties have defeated privatization campaigns, though some towns in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have signed on. Pennsylvania also has asked private operators to take over small, troubled public systems.

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