From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Melinda Mawdsley):
Clifton Water customers will see a rate increase next year to help pay for all operating and maintenance costs for the district.
The rate increases will take effect Jan. 1, 2016.
Customers who use the base minimum of 3,000 gallons or less a month will pay $1.50 more per month.
Customers at the next level of 3,001 to 10,000 gallons per month will notice a monthly increase of $1.90. Customers who use more than 10,000 gallons monthly can also expect a rate increase.
The increases were approved by the district’s board of directors earlier this month. In addition, the board approved an increase in the cost of a new water tap from $5,000 to $5,500.
Although monthly water rates have slowly gone up in recent years, this is the first new water tap increase since 2004, District Manager Dale Tooker said.
The Clifton Water District does not receive any tax revenue, so the funds it takes in are exclusively from rates charged to existing water users and tap fees for new users, Tooker added.
The Clifton Water Distrist uses the money to pay for operation costs, as well as rehabilitation and replacement issues such as replacing damaged or aging water lines or maintaining the water storage tanks north of Interstate 70.
This year marks a major milestone for the district with the completion of its $16 million Water Treatment Plant Improvement Project developed to utilize “a state-of-the-art Micro/Ultra Filtration process.”
An open house is planned for next year.
“We have employed a high amount of technology and treatment processes that are different,” Tooker said.
None of the improvements the district has made and will continue to make “could have been implemented without the customers participating in the rate structures,” Tooker said. “Water sales pays for the operation of our facility.”
Clifton Water District, formed in 1951 with 321 customers, now serves nearly 13,900 customers, producing more than 1 billion gallons of water a year that it takes and treats from the Colorado River, Tooker said.