By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
The Clark County Water Reclamation District (CCWRD) Board of Trustees will be considering new rates and charges at a public hearing next month.
The rate proposal calls for increases in both the connection fee (the one-time charge for new construction) and the sewer service charge which is paid each year by all CCWRD customers. This would include ratepayers in Overton who are connected to the district’s sewer treatment system.
The current connection fee was set back in 2012 at $2,195. According to the current proposal, that fee would increase to $2,422 in July of next year. Two additional increases to the fee would be made in the following two years with it reaching $2,876 in July 2021. After that, the fee would receive an annual adjustment based on an inflation index.
The annual charge for existing service would also increase under the proposal. This charge was actually reduced by 4% to $221.09 in 2013, and has remained the same ever since.
The District’s service charge is the lowest in Southern Nevada, and among the lowest rates in the nation, according to a presentation released last week by CCWRD officials.
According to the proposal, the annual charge would increase to $227.16 in July of 2019. From there, the charge is expected to see annual increases of about 2.7 percent per year over the next decade. By July 2028, the charge would reach $290.00 per year.
The increases would help fund the District’s proposed capital improvement projects for all the unincorporated areas of Clark County over nearly the next two decades. These projects total in at more than $1.4 billion over the next 15 years. These include projects for collection systems, which include pipelines and pumps, as well as district water treatment facilities.
A Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) reviewed the District’s current operations and its new capital improvement program in developing recommendations on the rate increases. Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board member Gene Houston sat on the CAC and gave input representing Overton ratepayers.
Houston said that the Overton system would not be seeing any new capital improvements in this round of planning as the system already has surplus capacity for growth in the community. Nevertheless, Houston said that he considered the proposed increases fair to local ratepayers.
Houston pointed out that several years ago when the district upgraded and expanded the Overton sewer system, there had been a discussion about how to pay the cost for that work.
“The price tag for that improvement was pretty high,” Houston said. “If it was only the Overton ratepayers that had to bear that cost, it would have meant a huge increase for them. It would have been pretty egregious and they would not have been able to do it.”
Instead, the district came up with a plan to spread the cost of the Overton facility out over all of the ratepayers in the district. This lightened the load on local ratepayers so that the needed local improvements could be completed, Houston said.
“Since the whole system made it possible for our improvements here in Overton, it is only fair that we should participate in these costs being spread across the whole system as well,” Houston said.
CCWRD officials praised the efforts put in by the members of the CAC in the process.
“We’re very appreciative of the Committee’s time, hard work, and especially their perspectives on how to go about funding the projects,” said CCWRD Board Chair, Larry Brown. “It’s always challenging to discuss infrastructure projects and operations that most of us don’t see or think about very often. When water goes down the drain, it is out of sight and out of mind. Yet the work involved with collecting and reclaiming wastewater into clean water is essential to our community and the environment.”
CCWRD General Manager Tom Minwegen said that the District’s approach to maintenance and reinvestment is the reason why the rates are low. “Many clean water agencies throughout the country find themselves replacing systems all at once, with staggering costs,” he said. “The District has kept up with repairs and replacements on an ongoing basis. Spending more than $100M in capital each year is ensuring all of our facilities keep operating 24/7.”
“What’s really remarkable is to think about our service charge on a daily rate,” Minwegen added. “A single family home customer is paying .61 per day for the collection and treatment to produce clean water. The proposed rates to support the program will only increase .02 per day, or less than $7 a year. That amount will support these critical investments in clean water that our community counts on every day.”
The rates and the Service Rules are available at www.cleanwaterteam.com. The District is also inviting comments via email at rates@cleanwaterteam.com.
The public hearing will be at 10:00 a.m. on December 18, in the Commission Chambers at the Clark County Government Center.
