What goes into the cost to provide drinking water for the community?
There are many parts to the delivery of drinking water. The water plant includes 24 hour staffing , equipment maintenance and chemicals for treatment of drinking water to State and Federal standards. There is equipment and staffing for the maintenance and repair of the over 90 miles water mains, several thousand valves and over 750 fire hydrants. Over 8000 customer have a water meter to ensure the proper volume of water is charged to the customer with staff and equipment to read, prepare water bills, repair and replacement of the water meters. There are also expenses to pay off any debt to install the systems and a reserve fund to pay for capital improvements over a long period of time.
