This is no April Foolʼs joke

Starting April 1, water bills will increase about 7 percent

Beginning April 1, customers of the El Dorado Water Utilities will see a rate increase of about 7 percent on their monthly bill.

On March 5, the El Dorado City Council adopted ordinances that will increase water rates by 2 percent and wastewater rates by 12 percent, reflecting a rate increase of 7 percent for the average EWU customer’s bill.

The proposal was part of a recommendation from a comprehensive rate and strategic planning study that was conducted by Raftelis, a utility and public-sector consulting firm that focuses on finance, organization and technology, including water and wastewater rate studies, cost analyses and financial and strategic planning.

In January, senior managers from Raftelis presented the results of the study to city council members, who

agreed they needed to help EWU ratepayers understand the state of the city’s aging water/wastewater infrastructure and why a rate increase is needed to generate additional revenue to help address and keep pace with ongoing maintenance issues and capital improvement projects.

Council members heard the third and final reading of both ordinances March 5 and moved for final passage, which was approved 7 - 0.

Council Member Mike Rice was not able to attend the meeting.

Lisa White and Anjanett “AJ” Kemp, EWU customer service manager and billing manager, respectively, said the new rates will be reflected in next month’s water bills.

“The bills that go out in April will already have the changes in them,” White said.

White explained that the first set of monthly statements will go out April 3 and will primarily include industrial/commercial customers in business districts along Hillsboro and North West Avenue, with some residential customers mixed in.

“We want everyone to know that when they see their bill, they don’t have a water leak or anything like that. It’s truly a rate increase,” Kemp explained.

EWU officials and Robert Edmonds, director of public works, agreed that the rate increases will be re-assessed within three years, providing a clearer picture for the next decade.

The financial outlook that was included in the Raftelis study covered a 10-year period.

Also in response to the rate study, the EWU is implementing other ideas and plans to keep up with repairs of the city’s water and wastewater system.

The city council’s Finance Committee previously approved a request from Robert Edmonds, director of public works, for the EWU to move $500,000 from its reserve coffers to apply toward waste line replacements for 2020.

“There is a problem with infiltration with the wastewater lines but the problems is worse with water lines. These are 60, 70 years old and it’s all over town,” Edmonds said previously.

In its study, Raftelis made similar statements, recommending that the EWU ramp up replacement and repairs of water and wastewater pipelines, many of which are several decades old.

With 400 miles of water lines and 200 miles of wastewater lines, Raftelis proposed that the EWU replace between four and six miles of pipe each year.

The EWU is also taking $260,000 from its reserves to develop an engineering plan for capital improvement projects on the wastewater side of operations.

The Raftelis study pointed to major repairs that are sorely needed for the utilities.

In January, Seth Garrison, a senior manager of Raftelis, cautioned council members that the city’s two wastewater treatment plants, both of which were built in the late 1970s, have far outlived their useful lives.

“Most of the plants across the country that vintage have already been replaced and refurbished once or twice,” Garrison said then. “If you don’t repair them, bad things are going to start happening. You’re going to have failures, compliance issues, could have fines…”

He said state and federal environmental regulatory agencies “have come down” on many communities for not tending to necessary repairs of water and wastewater systems.

Estimated rehabilitation costs for the WWTPs range between $19 - $40 million and Garrison explained that the EWU has avoided more expensive repairs by building the 26mile, multi-user wastewater pipeline to the Ouachita River.

The line got up and running in 2013 and serves the EWU and several local industries. The line is owned and operated by the water utilities and the industry partners share O&M costs.

The pipeline ferries treated wastewater to the river, rather than smaller creeks and streams that come with stricter environmental discharge limits.

On March 5, the city council approved EWU 2020 budget adjustments to reflect the line-item transfers for the water line repairs and engineering plan.

The adjustments also included a $125,000 transfer to switch the water utilities’ insurance coverage for equipment from the Arkansas

Municipal League to a private insurance carrier.

“After we budgeted the EWU’s 2020 budget, the culmination of their study came together and they kind of got more of a game plan on what they were going to do,” said Council Member Vance Williamson, who also serves as chairman of the Finance Committee.

For more information about the EWU rate increases, call the EWU office at 870-862-6451 and ask for the billing department.