Salem holds to new water rates despite complaints

SALEM — Residents complained about recent "shocker" water bills Wednesday, but the City Council held to the new rates.

The city recently completed a new pressurized irrigation system for most residents, tacking on an additional $25 a month base rate to the city's average $30 monthly rate for culinary or drinking water. New rates include a $21 monthly base rate for culinary water, then residents are charged an additional amount for the amount of water they actually use.

Residents pay 50 cents per 1,000 gallons up to 5,000 gallons for culinary water. The price then escalates to $2 per 1,000 gallons beginning with 5,001 gallons and the price goes up from there.

Residents who have pressurized irrigation water have unlimited use because it isn't metered. Already, Mayor J. Lane Henderson said, people are over-using it, which could lead to the city imposing controls. Conservation is an underlying theme of the new system, he said.

"We are over-watering as a community," Public Works director Bruce Ward said.

Culinary water continues to be metered, however, so residents whose homes are too far away from the new secondary water system continue to pay for the amount of water used whether in the house or to water the lawn.

Brian Bodey's house is not on the secondary water system but his water bill more than doubled to $240 in August when the new system kicked in. Jon Cope, who also is not on the secondary water system, complained that residents with just culinary water are paying 55 percent more per 1,000 gallons than users with pressurized irrigation water.

"That's not fair. It's not right," Cope said.

Ward disagreed with Cope and offered to go over his bill with him, while Henderson said a city crew would go by Bodey's house and check out the water meter. Average bills should run from $45 to $60 a month under the new system, regardless of whether residents have the new secondary water system, Ward said.

The rates were a "shocker" for some residents, Henderson said, but the city has been warning people for the past two years that water costs would go up with the new pressurized irrigation system.

Councilman Stanley Green said his water bill went down.

"I don't use much culinary water," he said.

The pressurized irrigation system is fed off two ponds above the Strawberry Highline Canal south and east of the city. The system was built to handle future growth, City Recorder Jeff Nielsen said.

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