To the City Council and Mayor of Eureka Springs,
You have been working for a year now on the water and sewer financial challenges, and the most equitable plan you can come up with is water rates (no change), sewer rates +21% across all three tiers, and a new monthly I&I fee of Tier 1-$5, Tier 2-$10, Tier 3-$50.
Well, looking at the total water and sewer bill change by tier, I see Tier 1 at +34%, Tier 2 at +30%, and Tier 3 at +14%. This is equitable? Again the households and businesses using the least water and sewer get the biggest percent increase and pay the most per gallon of water used!
What a convoluted mess of a rate structure. Know you were trying to not do +30% across all tiers… so +34% Tier 1 and +14% Tier 3 is better?
To be clear, I fully support increased rates to pay for the higher than planned costs of operating the sewage treatment plant, meeting our bond covenants, and rates to pay for needed infrastructure repairs and maintenance. We buy 280 million gallons of water annually from Carroll Boone but only bill out 140 million gallons, so 140 million gallons are wasted due to leaks into the ground, which is ecologically irresponsible.
Yet our current water rates are sufficient to pay for the 280 million gallons and generate a surplus, meaning the water rates are two times what they would be if there were no leaks. Let’s find and fix the leaks, and use the extra funds from 2-times water rates to maintain the system.
Your latest solution to solve our water and sewer financial problems still provides no funds to go find and fix this waste, rather it pays off bonds early and then we can fix the leaks… we can’t wait that long.
I’m disappointed that with all the time and effort, besides being not equitable, the proposed plan does not fully address our city’s water and sewer issues, and the longer we wait, the more expensive it is going to be… oh, and we get to look forward to some more and more frequent water main breaks and boil orders.
D Rude