Ask the Council to Wait

          The City of Grants Pass is planning to build a new, $80 million water treatment plant, to replace our 80-year old plant.  One part of it, the clear well, is falling apart and cannot be fixed in the time it would take us to use all the water in our storage tanks.

            Wednesday, November 7^th, at 6:00 PM, the City Council plans to vote on new water rates to start paying for the plant as we build it.  Please come to the meeting and ask the Council to hold off on setting the rates until they look at the numbers for both proposed rate systems.

           We all have the same right to water, as we all own it.  Our present rates oppress the poor and middle class by giving us cheap access to water with a low base rate but rationing our use by high unit prices.  The City’s highly-paid consultants would double down on the high and tiered unit rates and low base rates that were instituted in 2006 to save water.

            We should pay overhead, fixed prices, in the base rate, and pay unit costs, those that vary with the units produced, electricity for pumping and chemicals for cleaning, in one unit price.  This is the normal way that industry sets prices for a service and allows households to pay less per unit the more we buy, the normal way things are priced.  We have long had this alternative rate proposal on the table.  But city staff needs direction from Council to figure out the rates that would result.  Ask the Council to demand these numbers and to wait on setting rates until they have them.

• ·        Watering property is a basic right and duty of property owners and renters, rich and poor alike.  Low unit price promotes equal maintenance that makes the city clean, green, and safe. 
• ·        We have plenty of water in our river, and a dam to hold it for irrigation.  When the Lost Creek reservoir is low in May due to low snowpack, we can save water equally, by not watering lawns.
• ·         It is hard to waste water in a country with modern wastewater treatment.  Sewage is treated to drinking water standards and put back in the river.  Water that sinks below roots recharges the water table.  Water that evaporates makes rain locally and elsewhere, sharing moisture with surrounding areas and those downwind, which West of the Rockies, is uphill and upstream, filling our creeks and rivers.
• ·        Cities in the West have become dry, weedy, seedy and fire-prone from lack of watering.

·        Poor people presently pay more per unit overall for household water, as they tend to live many to a house.  Those who can afford to live one or two to a house usually do so and pay less.

·        Young families also pay more for household water, as children use a lot of water.

·        Everyone pays more to use less water under the city’s present and proposed rate system. Paying for overhead by selling high-priced units has resulted in rising base and unit rates as less is used.

·        Subsidize the household base rate for those who would be unable to pay it by using the franchise fee that the city charges us to use its own right-of-way.

·        Keep prices and plant finances stable by paying for fixed costs in fixed rates and only variable unit costs in the unit price. 

    Email the Grants Pass City Council and Mayor: mayorcouncil@grantspassoregon.gov.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener               541-955-9040                 rycke@gardener.com