The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

By Eric Dolson

The City of Sisters has installed water meters on all accounts, and last February passed a new rate schedule for water users. (See The Nugget, September 20 issue). The new

rates were based on what other cities and water companies charged, according to City Administrator Barbara Warren.

Despite a significant drop in the amount of water used, the new rates may provide a windfall to the City of Sisters.

According to Warren, in the 1993-94 fiscal year, the city provided about 236 million gallons of water. The following fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 1994 through June 30, 1995, the city provided 175.4 million gallons of water.

And water use is down even more this year, Warren points out. In July of 1994, the city sold 36.7 million gallons of water. In July of 1995, the city sold 19.2 million gallons. In August 1994, the city sold 36.7 million gallons. In August 1995, the city sold 22.4 million gallons.

That may just be meter shock, however, and use could creep back up. "I don't expect it (the decreased water use) will remain that way," Warren acknowledged.

If water use climbs again as she expects, and about the same amount is used this year as last, the city will receive some unbudgeted revenue. The city charges $1.65 for each 1,000 gallons. At that rate, the city would have earned $289,400 last year from water sales. For this fiscal year, the city budgeted just about half that, or $145,000, according to Administrator Warren.

If there is a significant amount of cash left over, what should the city do with it? "I don't know. It depends what the city council might do," Warren said. The options could range from a rebate to water users, which might be extremely difficult to calculate fairly, to a prepayment of the federal loan that helped pay for the water system improvements.

Council President Jean Cooper thinks such speculation is premature.

"I want to wait a full year. We have no winter rate usage yet to know what (annual) revenues will be," Cooper said. "If we go from June to June ( a full fiscal year) we will also have the bigger users on for a full year."

Those bigger users, such as the middle/high school and The Pines subdivision west of the Threewind Shopping Center weren't on meters until fairly recently. Already their water use has been cut drastically, through a change in irrigation practices at the school and the repair of leaks at The Pines.

"I want to know if there are any extravagant users in the winter time. There are, from what I have seen from the figures we have pulled out," Cooper said. These heavy winter-time users will also have an impact on what rates should be, she indicated.

Cooper said that until a full year of actual information is gathered, it is not possible to determine how much water is likely to be used under the current rates nor what those rates should be.

"We don't know if that surplus will be there (at the end of the year)," Cooper said. She was adamant about another point.

"Water rates did not go up. We (water users) are now a paying for what we use. All of us have been remiss and wasteful. There were people on my street who watered 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Cooper said.

These habits have changed now that "we have to pay for what we are using," Cooper said.