Some Eagle County residents will see their water rates increase in 2024 - Vail Daily

Some Eagle County residents will see their water rates increase in 2024 | VailDaily.com

Some Eagle County residents will see their water rates increase in 2024

To encourage conservation, Eagle River Water & Sanitation District plans to implement rate hikes for some accounts
Eagle River Water & Sanitation District

The Eagle River Water & Sanitation District and Upper Eagle Regional Water Authority are planning to raise base rates for all water and wastewater customers next year and restructure water rates for Individually Metered Residential and Irrigation Only accounts.

At its meeting on Thursday, Oct. 26, the district will hear public comment on the proposed rate hike, as well as on its 2024 budget, and will have the opportunity to vote on adopting the proposed 2024 rates.

In January 2023, the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District and the Upper Eagle Regional Water Authority directed staff to make necessary changes to rate structures. The goal is to reduce customers’ overall water use by about 400 acre-feet by 2026. An acre-foot of water is the equivalent of about 326,000 gallons, or enough to cover an acre of land 1 foot deep in water.

At the district’s Aug. 24 and Sept. 28 meetings, the changes to water rates were proposed by staff, and feedback was provided by board members.

“We’re just trying to get people to be mindful of (their water usage). They’re not watching,” said David Norris, director of business administration for the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District.

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The goal of reducing water usage is due to a combination of factors. Regulatory mandates, projects to upgrade aging infrastructure, and improvements to water system resiliency are driving much of the base rate increase. Water supply, always a concern in the West, is increasingly unpredictable due to climate change.

“You have to think about it more as resiliency. We are getting people to use less water over time, and that’s going to make our system more resilient as things get hotter and drier and we go into climate change,” said Jason Cowles, director of engineering and water resources for the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District. “It’s not water for new development. It’s not water for new use. This is getting our customers to adjust their behavior because of what is coming,” he said.

Combined, Individually Metered Residential and Irrigation Only accounts make up almost 87% of all water district accounts, 39% of the total water Single Family Equivalents, and 45% of total billed consumption. The remaining 13 percent of accounts, which represent more than half of the total water Single Family Equivalents and total billed consumption spread across four account types — commercial, multi-family, municipal, and mixed-use — will be analyzed in 2024 to receive potential new rate structures. One Single Family Equivalent is roughly 3,000 square feet.

Individually Metered Residential accounts

Individually Metered Residential accounts represent 82.8 percent of the water district’s accounts, 37.8 percent of the total water Single Family Equivalents, and 36.7 percent of total billed consumption. The current rate structures for these accounts allow for inequitable application of rates because homes are permitted use per tier of the maximum Kgals per tier multiplied by the Single Family Equivalent of the home.

The current per 1,000-gallon cost disparity between homes larger than one Single Family Equivalent that use water above Tier 1, and one Single Family Equivalent home that uses the same amount of water, was found by water and sanitation district staff to be dramatic.

Under the new rate structure, the Single Family Equivalent multiplier has been eliminated from usage tiers used for billing, and tier allotments have been redesigned with a per 1,000-gallon price to align with volumetric thresholds.

With the old system, larger homes were allotted disproportionately large amounts of water, rather than being billed directly by the amount of water used. The new rates will have a significantly larger impact on homes over one Single Family Equivalent.

Individually Metered Residential residences measuring Single Family Equivalent or less will not see dramatic changes to water bills following the new changes, which are targeted toward those using water in excess of need.

“Out of the 8,300-ish (homes) that are in the Individually Metered Residential, fully half of those are one (Single Family Equivalent) or less, so we tried to be clear in (the mailer) that they’re not going to be affected (by the rate changes),” said Diane Johnson, the communications and public affairs manager for the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District.

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This is because, due to the uneven application of water rates these efforts are attempting to correct, “under 1 (Single Family Equivalent) has already been paying Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 the way that everybody will,” Johnson said.

Knowing about the new rates enables customers to reduce their water rates by reducing their water consumption, though every customer will be impacted by the increase in base rates.

“If they’ve been using 5,000, 6,000 gallons, they’re not going to be able to do a lot of stuff to get their bill much less because so much of what they pay is in those base rates,” Johnson said.

Irrigation Only accounts

Irrigation Only accounts make up 3.8 percent of the total accounts, 1.3 percent of the total water Single Family Equivalents, and 8.5 percent of total billed consumption. Irrigation Only accounts use a disproportionately large amount of water. As of 2023, there are three rate structures within Irrigation Only accounts, which creates inequity and inconsistency in rate application.

With the new framework, all Irrigation Only accounts will be billed under a single rate structure called Coverage Based Irrigation. Under Coverage Based Irrigation, the tier measurements for water usage rates will correlate with the acreage being irrigated, a more equitable system for billing.

“It’s not that we’re saying you can’t irrigate what you have, we’re saying irrigate efficiently,” Norris said.

With the new system, tiers will more accurately correlate with appropriate levels of watering. Tier 5 will be over the maximum allowance, and include any use of 190 and above Kgals of water per acre.

“The beauty about this design is that anyone here, no matter what, the size of a tenth of an acre or 70 acres, if you’re in tier five, you are overwatering,” Norris said.

Communication

In late September, a mailer went out to every mailing address in two Vail zip codes, one Avon zip code, and one Edwards zip code, with information about the changes coming to Individually Metered Residential accounts.

“What we’re trying to do for folks is help them understand how they’ll be affected,” Johnson said.

“This is the right way to do this. A lot of places would just push the rate out, and get the phone calls, and let it go. Being upfront with people about what is going to happen, it’s good for the district to be upfront about that, even bad news sometimes,” said Dick Cleveland, the chair of the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District board.

“One of the things that we say as a leadership team is we all live by no surprises,” said Siri Roman, the general manager of the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District.

The new 2024 rate structures, and the 2024 budget, will be up for public comment and board approval at the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District’s meeting at noon on Thursday, Oct. 26, in the Walter Kirch Conference Room at the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District administrative offices, located at 846 Forest Road in Vail.

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