Looks like they get about half as much from Marshalltown (900 million gals vs 450). Didn't know that. Wonder how that works. There's no way all of our water is coming from Marshalltown. We can tell the difference. Maybe rural areas North of Mtown get Mtown water and South gets Newton?
I was talking about what rate customers pay for water. The amounts listed in that article are what rates communities like Newton charge to regional water associations. It's not the same thing. Rathbun Regional Water, for example, charges their customers around $10/1000 gallons for the minimum. I'm not sure if you are suggesting Regional Water Associations should be providing water at cost to its customers, but obviously they can't do that because they have operational costs.
According to their 2023 annual report they get 90 million from Newton, Marshalltown, and their own well field outside of Waverly monthly. Not sure why there is a discrepancy in numbers.
In most cases, spreading costs over a larger rate base results in lower per customer costs.
I live on an acreage and have a well. I built a new house in '95 and although we didn't have access to rural water at the time we knew it was imminent and plumbed for ease of hookup and a couple years later it arrived. All outside use remained on the well. The vein of water tapped by our well (140' deep) is arguably one of hardest around. In the "old house" we had Culligan do a hardness test as we shopped for a new water softener and the hardness exceeded their charts. Besides the cost of salt for treatment the water was over time very hard on dishwashers, toilets, showers, washing machines and the like, so the thought of buying water when we already had availability was easily offset. I don't think the cost for a minimum use of water has increased more than a couple bucks a month in the last 25 years. I just received a letter from Iowa Regional Utilities Assoc. that they found themselves in a dispute with their suppliers on the interpretation of a 40 year old agreement that would increase their water cost from between 172 and 793 percent of what they have been currently paying and that cost passed on to us would cause our bill to double. If this comes to fruition I guess we will bite the bullet and remain a customer but I didn't plan for this in my retirement budget.
Can you explain that math? If the wholesale cost from Newton to IRUA is going from $1.14 for 1000 gals to 3.27 for 1000, a 2.23 difference, how does that translate to an increase of $75 for around 5000 gals?
It doesn't directly affect me because I'm on well water, but Cedar Rapids recently announced that Google is building a data center near the airport. The city said they would be top 3 in water usage (mostly likely only behind ADM and Quaker Oats).
There is a whole subforum where you can discuss all your feelings about this without polluting a thread about rural water rates
