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February 2, 2011

Cost of water drops

City lowers wholesale rate for customers

By Benjamin Bullard The Cullman Times

Every water system that purchases treated drinking water from the City of Cullman will pay a lower wholesale rate for the coming year than it had done in 2010.

The city announced the drop in rates Tuesday at a specially-called meeting of local water systems held at the Cullman City Hall.

The new rate for fiscal year 2011, $1.50 per thousand gallons of water, reflects a significant decrease from last year’s rate of $2 per thousand gallons.

Representatives from water systems that use Cullman as their primary water supplier naturally were pleased at the news. Cullman County Commission Chairman James Graves, representing the county as the city’s biggest single water customer, said the lower rate will be welcome news for customers of all the area’s water systems.

“This was a total surprise — we were not expecting this at all,” said Graves. “We thought the rates might remain stationary, but a reduction is total surprise. We were charging more than anybody else in the whole county for our water, even though we all paid the same wholesale price. We would anticipate a decrease in our county water rates in the very near future. We think our county customers have been gouged enough in the past two or three years, and they deserve to be on the receiving end of this.”

A drop in county water customers’ rates would have to be approved by the full county commission — a move Graves said would probably come after the commission has built a standing reserve of water department funds and consolidated the equipment and other assets of the water department.

“As soon as we get our bills paid for and get a reserve built back up, we will start lowering our rates then,” he said. “We’ve been evaluating our equipment; replacing some; getting some repaired. We’re going to do our best to lower that because of this excess cost, since that cost is no longer there now. We’ll probably need about six more months to get everything taken care of.”

Read the complete story in the Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011 print edition of The Cullman Times.



* Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.

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