At Monday night’s Jackson City Council Meeting, the Water/Sewer Rate Committee gave a report outlining their recommendations to resolve rising water and sewer rates.  The committee has been charged with analyzing water and sewer rate issues affecting the city’s budget.  According to the report, “the largest single item impacting the water department budget is the rate increase approved by the Amador Water Agency Board of Directors in June, 2007,” which raised the rates by 22% last August, and will include a 12% increase on July 1, 2008, and next July 1st.  The committee believes that there are three primary issues that are the cause of these rate increases: the Plymouth Pipeline, the Ione Treatment Facility, and Amador Transmission Pipeline Capacity.  Specifically, the committee found that AWA is only charging Plymouth customers 2500 dollars per hookup to the new Plymouth Pipeline, when in fact the AWA’s own study shows that 7040 dollars is actually needed to cover the costs for new wholesale customers.  At a discrepancy of over 4500 dollars per hookup, and an estimated 536 new wholesale hookups in Plymouth, that adds up to about 2.4 million dollars in costs that “will be borne on all of the other ratepayers.” 

According to the committee, AWA insists that Plymouth customers hooking up at the lower rate will benefit the rest of the ratepayers, but has not shown any evidence of this. As for the Ione Treatment Plant, the committee feels that AWA should reconsider expanding the Tanner plant, a project that will cost an estimated 40 million dollars, 12 of which will be passed on to customers. The committee says that the Ione plant would cost only about 4 million and should be able to adequately meet that area’s projected growth. And finally, the committee claims that AWA has “overestimated the capacity of the Amador Transmission Pipeline,” thereby causing existing ratepayers to pay rates that “reflect more than their fair share.”  The committee recommended that the City Council meet directly with the AWA Board of Directors to “clarify some of the outstanding issues.”  The council agreed and will seek to meet with the AWA Board in the near future.