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Thursday, May 08, 2014

Water, Water. Yikes!



As a follow up to yesterday's posting on the recent public meeting to see about buying out Golden West Water Company, here's some price differences between  Municipal and privately owned water districts in different states.  On average, privitization increased costs  33%.  And, as was pointed out by the speakers, the real savings comes in projecting out thhe constant "profit" price bump-ups each year over the years.  It does add up to a huge amount taken out of a community as "profit" versus staying in the consumer's pocket and staying in the community.  Figures from: web: www.foodandwaterwatch.org  

Muni                        Investor
Owned                       Owned
Utilities                      Utilities  
               
Alaska $441.84      $458.79 4%
Arizona  $225.00      $329.40 46%
Arkansas  $273.83     $344.68 26%
California  $415.86     $500.42 20%
Connecticut  $300.72      $398.13 32%
Delaware  $256.20      $449.40 75%
Florida  $300.96         $360.02 20%
Illinois  $240.84        $326.88 36%
Indiana  $232.68        $318.81 37%
Iowa  $219.84          $314.16 43%
Kentucky  $316.07       $361.21 14%
Maryland  $232.50       $381.00 64%
Massachusetts  $357.00      $481.00 35%
Maine  $331.31      $362.81 10%
New Hampshire  $411.70      $582.00 41%
New Jersey  $258.00       $318.00 23%
New Mexico  $259.83       $356.34 37%
North Carolina  $204.12      $344.76 69%
Ohio  $444.73            $510.40 15%
Oregon  $271.79        $313.97 16%
Maryland  $289.20      $367.20 27%
Tennessee  $306.00        $381.00 25%
Texas  $329.40        $553.80 68%
Utah  $307.23        $359.05 17%
West Virginia  $375.40      $456.82 22%
Wisconsin  $252.03        $400.55 59%
Wyoming  $261.83       $343.00 31%
Average 33%

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Guess we'll have to read the link because this doesn't make sense.

Sewertoons AKA Lynette Tornatzky said...

I get it. Making that profit is the difference. The CSD water service is an enterprise fund, so is disallowed from collecting any extra money by law. The money they take in must pay for the water service and repairs and improvements to the infrastructure. No one pockets anything to spend elsewhere. (Which of course brings to mind the 2006 disappearance of the reserves the CSD enterprise fund held to make those repairs....)