It's All About Clean Water

Fairly Sharing the Cost of Water

“It’s All About Clean Water” is published in the Moultrie News as a recurring column exploring issues tied to water quality in our community.

We learn from an early age about fairness and sharing. As adults, we strive to teach our families those same values. Communities must strive to share costs in a way that is fair for everyone. So it is no surprise that fairness and sharing play key roles in determining who should pay and how much a utility should charge for clean drinking water and protection of our environment with proper wastewater management.

On June 26, after several months of discussion and public input, Mount Pleasant Waterworks completed its 2007 budget, which begins July 1. The total budget is $54.1 million; $20.5 million for operating and $33.6 million for capital improvements. The budget reflects ongoing price escalations throughout our economy. Fuel and energy costs are staggering.

Most of our core materials such as pipe are made from petroleum products. And each year, we are faced with new regulatory, employment and staffing increases.

At MPW, annual operating costs are shared by all of our customers through water and wastewater user fees. Examples of operating costs at MPW include fuel and energy, maintenance, labor, insurance, training and education and equipment upgrades to make systems run more efficiently, use less energy, improve environmental quality and save money for the long-term.

However, some of those operating costs are a direct result of added expenses necessary to provide capacity and service for high volume water customers. At MPW, those expenses are not shared by everyone but are collected from the high volume users. User rates are set in four tiers that assess higher fees as customers progress through the tiers. The extra revenue collected in these tiers pays for the added cost of providing capacity, pumping, treatment, storage, and distribution of water.

As new residents move to Mount Pleasant, MPW must increase water and wastewater treatment capacity and extend its water distribution system and wastewater collection system to accommodate this growth. MPW implemented impact fees twenty-five years ago to collect additional revenue to pay for capital costs that are a direct result of growth. These impact fees are charged to developers and builders and protect existing customers from the financial burden of paying for new capacity. Later, MPW formally adopted, through its Cost Recovery Policy, the philosophy that growth pays for growth.

In the sense of fairness and sharing, MPW must always be careful that the capital costs paid with impact fees are actually a result of growth. There are capital improvements in which existing customers all share in the costs. Among those are replacing aging pipes, upgrading wastewater treatment plants to better protect the environment and neighborhoods and investing in new technologies that save time and money.

MPW is committed to setting user fees and impact fees at appropriate levels to fairly allocate operating costs and capital costs to existing and future customers. As a result, today’s water and wastewater customers receive one of the best values possible for services and products received. On average, MPW customers using 5,500 gallons of water a month will pay about $44.73 for clean, safe drinking water and leading edge technology that processes wastewater safely back to the environment. It is certainly one of the best and fairest values available.