Council: Act like Regulators

 

Honorable Council, Mayor and Manager,

            At our last meeting, I chided this Council, especially the member who wanted to nearly double our bulk water rates from $6.05/1000 gallons to $12 just to see what happens to demand.  The Council passed the increase unanimously, so you all share in that decision. 

It seems that little will happen to demand for that water, because the actual price of the water is still low compared to the cost of hauling it.  Water is, after all, not a scarce, precious resource; it is abundant and vital to families and farms in our county.  Even hauled water is a monopoly, because the cost of time and fuel exceeds any savings that might be realized by hauling water from Medford at $1.25/1000 gallons.   This explains how Cave Junction can charge $30/1000; they are just as far from us as we are from Medford.

            The Councilor who proposed this rate hike for our rural customers replied that he represents the citizens of this city.  If you truly represent and act as regulators to protect the residents of Grants Pass from the monopoly power of city utilities to run rates up to whatever the market can bear, then you would reform our water and sewer rate systems back to what we had before water rationing rates became a worldwide fad over the last 35 years. 

For over 50 years, we paid for all the overhead of our water plant, the expenses that do not rise and fall with our use of the service, in our monthly base rates.  We paid only marginal unit costs, which rise and fall with use, in our unit rates.  Sewage treatment was all base rates with no unit rates not long ago.  Unit rates for wastewater cleaning are oppressive to larger families who are often low income and multi-generational.  Overpriced water is oppressive, too.

Returning to the old rate system would pay all the expenses of our utilities at the least cost to customers every month and allow us to use all the water we want at a low price, as we did in the ‘80s and before, when our city was clean, green, and safe from fire because we put millions of gallons in the air every day of the growing season with our sprinklers and water vapor spread through the surrounding countryside for miles.

Please put utility rate reform on your agenda so we can all water our city and make it clean, green, beautiful, and safe again.

 Speech to the Grants Pass City Council, 6-2-2021, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

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