By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
The Moapa Valley Water District board held a brief follow-up discussion on the subject of its proposal to increase water usage rates for a certain narrow segment of its customer base during a meeting held on Thursday, Sept. 8 in Overton.
In the July MVWD board meeting, district staff had proposed the idea of adding a fourth usage tier to the MVWD water rate structure. This would increase rates to customers using the largest volume of water.
The new tier would only apply to customers using over 70,000 gallons of water or more per month. Thus it would be limited only to large water users such as industrial facilities or owners of parks and large athletic fields which must be watered regularly.
At the suggestion of the board, and in keeping with state law, the MVWD staff had sent a Business Impact Statement out to all local business customers. This statement requested business owners to provide feedback on whether such an increase would add a significant burden to the operation of their businesses.
In the September 8 meeting, MVWD General Manager Joe Davis said that the district had only received one response to the mailing. That came from the St. John’s Catholic Church in Logandale, Davis said.
“They were very concerned about the impact it might have on the efforts they make in taking care of the needs of local parishioners,” Davis explained.
But Davis was pleased to note that the district staff had taken a close look at the church’s past water usage and found that the proposed action would not affect St. John’s bill at all.
“They are just barely into the third tier if at all,” Davis said. “This fourth tier we are proposing at 70,000 gallons, they are not even close to that.”
Davis pointed out that the proposed change would more likely benefit St. John’s and the many other standard water customers in the community.
“Our mindset is that the fourth tier which is using the most water and putting the most impact on the system would pay more for that each month,” Davis said. “That way we would not be looking at raising the base rate for everybody else out there. The base rate would stay lower and St. John’s and others would not see an increase on their base rate.”
Davis talked about the need for a moderate increase in revenues for the district. This is due to increased cost of materials, labor and government regulation. “In the past we have tried to do incremental increases each year over time, rather than having these huge increases all at once,” Davis said. “Our community has been very understanding to the fact that we are struggling like everyone else out there. So in a way, I think it is positive that we haven’t gotten anymore response to this mailing.”
Davis highlighted that the proposed new rate tier would also fulfill a new trend across the region toward conservation of water resources.
“The state has come out and are considering more and more regulations concerning drought monitoring,” Davis said. “They are interested in what municipalities are doing in order to protect water resources. So this fourth tier would really be targeted toward conservation out in the field.”
Board members were supportive of the approach and encouraged staff to continue through the process of establishing the fourth rate tier. After a required time period, it will be brought to the board again for a final vote on a meeting scheduled for Wednesday, October 19 at 4 pm in the MVWD conference room.
“I appreciate you looking at different options like this,” said Board Chairman Randy Tobler. “We are trying to not affect the base rate because that affects everyone across the board. This idea might be able to avoid doing that for the next one we will be looking at.”
