Parker Water and Sanitation is proposing an increase in rates for 2014 to compensate for new costs incurred through its new water treatment plant and for securing renewable water.
The utility is proposing an overall 2.52 percent increase in water rates, or 3.5 percent for water and 1.5 percent for sewer. Costs associated with the new water treatment plant that is treating surface water from the Rueter-Hess Reservoir are about $500,000, another $211,000 is to hire two new maintenance employees for the dam and at the treatment plant, and the costs associated with securing the WISE renewable water partnership is $200,000. The rate increases translate to about an additional $31 for ratepayers per year.
Over the past decade, the district would go years without increasing rates and then implement large increases of more than 10 percent. Parker Water and Sanitation District Manager Ron Redd said he wants to break that pattern and implement smaller increases.
All but one board member approved the rates last week. Redd said one board member was apprehensive about raising rates without a more recent rate study. Redd defended the rate increases because he said he has a good sense of what costs are expected for the district in the next few years.
“It is a good thing we’re moving to renewable and preserving our groundwater, but you have to have the ability to treat that surface water,” Redd said. “We’re moving to surface water and we’ll slowly move towards it, but we’re going in the right direction.”
He said by 2022 the district will have access to 1,200 acre feet per year to renewable water from Denver and Aurora, allowing groundwater use for emergencies.
Redd said the district serves 50,000 residents and has been adding 1,500-1,800 new residents every year for the last few years.
The new water treatment plant can treat 10 million gallons a day, but Redd said the district doesn’t quite need that and right now is looking to treat 1,500 acre feet of water annually, or about 490 million gallons.
He said the current budget does not include revenue coming from possible partnerships of agencies wanting to use or store water in the Rueter-Hess Reservoir.
According to Steven Hellman, director of finance, the utility will use about $100,000 in reserves for sewer but no reserve transfer from water because it has to be conservative about using reserves considering $5 million in expenses between now and 2022.
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2953, cwoullard@denverpost.com or
