Agenda - 10-30-2002 - 1 (AOG) - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

, 11 fortunate to have good neighbors that have helped us more than we've been able to help them in the past. What we're doing now is part of mutual aid and sharing resources and information and that type of thing. Barry mentioned the Shearon Harris facility. Another good example of what seems to be a lack of information. And together, the more we can learn in knowing how to respond that's certainly going to be key. Challenges and uncertainties, aggressive capital improvements. The leaders in the water and sewer industry across the country say an aging infrastructure is the number one concern. A lot of our CIP is in place to address just that. These aren't big numbers for Durham, I don't think, but for our utility these are big numbers. In the next five years, we're expecting to spend $94 million, and over the next 15 years, $260 million. And a lot of that is replacing and renewing aging water and sewer pipes for our system. At the wastewater treatment plant, we may have to remove nitrogen from the effluent infuser, so that's something that is part of a special study right now and we're paying very close attention to. And then there are so many things to monitor such as water consumption, the growth in the area, the assumptions we made in the master plan and projections and keeping that up to date. With that, I'll stop and answer whatever questions you may have. Chair Jacobs: Could you talk a little about how your seasonal rates work and also about how you came up with the methodology for charging based on square footage that didn't cost you revenue? Ed Kerwin: The seasonal rate, we hired a consultant, and we're happy to share that report with anyone. We looked at a number of different conservation rate structures, and what the OWASA board selected was the seasonal rate. We are projecting that there will be three percent reduction in demand because of this rate structure. On May 1St, our commodity charge went from $2.90 for a thousand gallons to $4.08. It went up a lot and it's going to stay there through September. Then the commodity charge is going down to $2.16, much lower than it had been at the uniform rate. And again, based on our study and looking at assumption patterns, about 70% of our residential customers, when they add up 12 months of bills, the annual bill will be the same and maybe even a little less. But for those customers that use a lot more in the summer for irrigation or other purposes, they are going to be paying higher rates. The bill will look higher from May through September and they'll be higher over the year because they won't make up those savings in the off-peak because they consumed most water during the peak. So that's the principle of that seasonal rate. Question: Ed, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but the University uses a lot of water for evaporative cooling, does this rate apply to them as well? Ed Kerwin: We have the same rate for all of our customers, including and especially the University. The University has 250 different accounts with us. And like dorms, they're going to be getting a break because a lot of their water is used when it's cheaper. But the other customers such as cooling or irrigation, those bills are going to be higher. When the University looked at it as a whole, they concluded that it was fair and reasonable and necessary that OWASA do this. In fact, a representative of the University spoke at the public hearing last year in support of making this change, even knowing that some of their accounts are really going to see it and other accounts where there is actually some benefit. And for those accounts that see that impact, they'll have added incentive hopefully to find ways to further reduce or reuse or recycle or seek other methods. Bill Strom: One of the early slides you put up, you showed your service area boundary. Given that Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Orange County have an agreement in place that restricts annexations, my impression is that this is a pretty firm service boundary for you that OWASA can't really anticipate that that service boundary is going to change. Can you talk about if that is an opportunity or a challenge and how that's affected all the long-range planning that you've done and just sort of share the experience of that reality with everybody here. Ed Kerwin: Well, with this red line setting and establishing our service area, it really removed a lot of uncertainty from our plan because we didn't have to wonder how big of an area we might serve in the future. It was clearly defined. And over the next 50 years, the projections are that there will essentially be a doubling of the number of customers in our service area. I think the towns' and the County's plan went out 25 years. We try to stretch it out twice that long, making certain assumptions—working with the planning staff, and the towns, and the County—because new water resources just don't happen overnight. They can take 20 years sometimes to put in place. But for the utility, it really simplified and removed a lot of uncertainty about how big of an area we will have to meet in the future. And the towns and the County pretty strongly agree with that defined area and with the new water and sewer boundary agreement that Barry mentioned, it also talked about if there are failing systems or other health issues in the area surrounding the service area, there is a collaborative process to go through of how to address that need.