Culinary Water

Do you know what you’re really paying for water?

While figures have not been made available, after asking for this public information besides what’s been stated in the Budget, it’s unknown what the exact accounting is on our Culinary System. But here’s what can be gleaned:

1) We seem to have received a Grant in the amount of 3.4 MILLION DOLLARS on our Culinary Water System. Our payback on this loan is 1.7 MILLION DOLLARS. The Mayors proposed increase results in around $900 more a month in revenue. It’s so insignificant in the scheme of things – why bother? We’re already in debt up to our eyeballs! AS FOLLOWS:

2) We are paying $40,000 in INTEREST ALONE each year towards this debt. Divide that debt between 300 hookups, (get your checkbooks out) and it comes to over $100,000 per household., and we’re all going to be paying for it for the next 35 to 40 years! And this DOES NOT include any more improvements to the system – like our half of the cost of the current project which is $218,000. And there are more projects in the works.

If the figures that HAVE been given are correct, we are running a Water Budget that is costing around $2,000 PER HOUSEHOLD per year – which is $167 per month in actual costs. We are entirely dependent on Government Grants to fund our water – (as well as to operate our Town). While some people see no problem with this, others of us do, and it leads to other problems.

3) There are around 225 households in Huntsville Town. The rest of these hookups are OUTSIDE of Town boundaries, and growing. The Mayor states that our system is designed to work at “peak efficiency” – (as long as we have water!) – of around 760 households. (We’ll talk about the annexation issues at another time) But this also expands the costs of maintenance on that system. So while the Town can generate more income from additional hookups – it will also add more costs of maintenance. We’re running the risk of spreading our precious water resources thin, as we keep selling it to pay for the system we’ve gone in debt for 35 to 40 years, at the tune of $100,000 per household. We’d call this a Catch-22. (You can look it up)

QUESTIONS: Who decides who gets these other 460 hookups? Who decides how much they are going to charge for them? How soon will more people who have water live OUTSIDE of Town than in? While droughts are occurring all over the Western United States and all over the world, why would we put our water resources in jeopardy?

It speaks for its importance that our Water Budget is nearly as big as our Town Budget, and has put residents in millions of dollars worth of debt, to service people outside of our Town. What are the CLEAR and STATED intentions behind these decisions?

These questions go unanswered, and any information concerning them is really hard to come by. Hopefully, this lack of transparency in our Culinary Water situation, which is our most important asset, will clear up, and soon! Our next edition will be dedicated to information and discussion about our Water.

So stay tuned !