What water issues? Haven’t you noticed the rain over the past few months? Only kidding. While the rains of late have been nice, plentiful, and will eventually lead to bounties in crops hopefully, they aren’t really Franklinton’s real water issues. As you may know, we have two reservoirs to serve the water customers of the greater Franklinton area. We also have a contract with Franklin County that requires the Town to sell Franklin County Public Utilities (formerly Franklin Water and Sewer Authority) 350,000 gallons of water per day – and the contract still has 12 years to go on it. If you live in Franklinton, firstly, you should be glad that we have water to provide – some communities don’t. Secondly, we should also celebrate the fact that we’re able to partner with the County in providing a water source so that Franklin County has an additional place to go.
The flip side, however, is that droughts happen. As you may know, in 2007 we had a minor issue in Franklinton while other areas were having major challenges with the deterioration of the water source. This in turn not only prevented Franklinton from being able to provide the County with water, but also cost the Town money in the sale of that water. With this in mind, the Board of Commissioners is very interested in seeing the upper reservoir raised several feet. This would add an additional 700,000+ gallons of available raw water to be processed for citizens and businesses every day. As well, there’s an area on the south side of the current reservoir that could be used for a park once the dam is raised.
Additionally, there’s a challenge with some of the water lines around town, including several that are too small for the areas that they serve. This, of course, will cost money – everyone’s favorite topic! Yay! So what’s the next step? Well, there are a couple.
This budget year, we attempted to lower the basic utility rates, but in turn, we were hit with some higher costs from outside providers, and thus, we attempted to restructure the fees. Previously, the first 2,000 gallons of water cost $20.00, and each additional 1,000 cost $4.50; the first 2,000 gallons of sewer cost $21.00, and each additional 1,000 cost $7.20. The bill has been altered so that now, the first 1,000 gallons of water costs $15.00, the second 1,000 costs $2.50, and each additional 1,000 gallons costs $4.75. Now, your first 1,000 gallons of sewer costs $17.50, and each additional 1,000 gallons cost $7.80. Thus, 2,000 gallons of water costs $17.50, and 2,000 gallons of sewer costs $24.30. Additionally, the cost of sanitation went up, as well, to $16, due to a rate increase from Waste Industries. Folks, we tried. What does this mean for the future? Well, if we’re going to do anything with water system improvements, any number of things may have to happen, including that the debt service fee increases. For the record, the debt service fee brings in on average $72,000 per year. In reality, that isn’t much compared to debts in excess of $300,000 for water and sewer upgrades. So…we may see an increase there, though we’ll try to avoid it – and the same goes for the rates as well. However, some things are unavoidable, and if we’re forced to move on something, we’ll have to do it.
As we always do, we will continue to seek grants and no-interest loans so that we can make things as low-impact on our citizens as possible. I promise you that we do our best. That’s all anyone can do, I believe. As we see commercial citizens increase, the impact on residential citizens will decrease.
No comments:
Post a Comment