Metro residents could see a jump in their water bill soon.
The Metropolitan Utilities District is looking at a proposal that would raise rates 7.9% for water. Spokeswoman Tracey Christensen says the increase would be a little under $30 per year. "An average residential customer would probably see about a little over two dollars, $2.30, more a month on their water bill." That increase in water rates could be offset next year by what is expected to be a cheaper rate in natural gas.
Christensen says that extra money would mean big improvements could be made to old, inefficient cast iron water mains. "We have about 500 water main breaks a year which affect the public and we wanna be more aggressive with getting our infrastructure replaced."
M.U.D. needs to replace over 1,000 miles of those aging mains and Christensen says right now, they aren't able to fix them quick enough. "With this plan that we're proposing, we'd get up to about 30 miles a year. Right now we're on track with only about 7 miles a year." If you do the math, that means the district would be able to get the repairs done in a quarter of the time it would currently take.
The MUD board will debate and vote on the water proposal during its board meeting on Wednesday.