If you’re a Rockdale water customer you remember last year’s water rate hikes, which almost doubled monthly bills for many.
They are about to happen again.
City Manager Chris Whittaker said he plans to proposed the second set of rate increases during the first council meeting of the 2020, set for 5:30 p.m. Jan. 13 at City Hall.
A lot has happened since the first round of hikes and the news isn’t good for water customers.
“This year’s increases are going to be more than the first ones,” he told The Reporter.
COURSE CHANGE—
Last year’s increases were initially meant to cover $10-million in planning and design toward a total water-sewer system replacement with an estimated eventual combined price tag of $63-million, $48-million of that in water.
“The Texas Water Development Board has told us it want to see something happening on the project itself, not only planning and design,” Whittaker said. “So these rates are going to pay for $24-million in the project, not $10-million. There’s been a change in course.”
That’s not the only major changes.
Last year the plan called for constructing new water treatment facilities, as well as a massive replacement of water pipes, some of them over a century old.
But, in December, the city council decided to purchase water from Blue Water Systems, water said to be of such high quality it won’t need treatment at a plant.
Blue Water’s Paul Terrill told the council the water comes from such depth that iron and manganese—the cause of Rockdale’s perennial “red water” woes—are not even present.
COST—Whittaker said while expenses of building new water treatment plants will not now be in the project, cost of the contract with Blue Water is about $12-million and will include a pipeline from its wells to the city’s distribution system.
“That water will go to Mill Street and Allday tank with the (Rockdale’s current water wells) being taken out of service,” he said.
Quality of the water to be put into new pipes has been a major topic of discussion about the project began.
Whittaker noted the water treatment facilities at Mill Street and Texas Street won’t be needed once the projects have been completed and the city receives water from the Blue Water system.
Engineering work continues on a new sewer plant for Rockdale.
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