The Bad, Part I

I alluded to some bad that has happened during my hiatus. Actually, a lot. First, here's some basics and a tiny taste of some of the negativity.

As I've mentioned, Boyfriend manages a small water company. It's a "mutual" so that means that all the customers "own" a piece of it. It's been run by the "good ol' boys" club for the past 40 years. They've never had a licensed operator to run the place and somehow managed to get away with it. Nothing was updated or upgraded. Band-aides were put on only when forced. Being so small, the state turned a blind eye. Until the last couple years. And the band-aides aren't working anymore.

Last year, the state finally inspected the surface water treatment plant and found some deficiencies - because it's 60 years old. Because of these deficiencies, when we have to use the river and run the treatment plant, we have to issue a boil advisory, per state law. Due to the drought, we've had to use the river to since March, about 4 months earlier than normal. We have 5 wells that, up until now, have provided adequate or near adequate water supply. But they are slowly running dry; two of them are dead in the water. One is consistent, and two are intermittent. If we don't get any rain this winter, by the first of the year we could be forced to use the river as our only supply. By law, we can only pull so much out of the river in a day; plus our plant is only designed to handle that maximum amount in a day. Any more than that and it just overflows and goes right back into the river.

Another problem is that when Boyfriend started, none of the customers were metered. Everyone pays a flat rate for what they believe is "unlimited water". No one has ever really been able to show these people how much water they waste. Earlier in the year, we instituted a strict water waste policy (well, strict for these people anyway), where if water was in the street, it's waste and fines are added to their account. We even made sure to take pictures to prove to people. They would argue about it while letting it continue to run in the street that they "pay their bill and therefore can use as much water as I want". Seriously.

A lot of changes have happened in a very short period of time. Boyfriend started last December, I started in April and the three Board Members have only been around a year or less each. They are all learning and have been surprised to learn how bad of shape the system is. They agreed to updating the water waste policy so that there were fines attached; they agreed to changing the due date (it used to be the 10th of the month and I suggested the 15th or 20th, they chose the 15th) and agreed that the due date should be enforced; they agreed to do public monthly board meetings, even though as a mutual, we don't have to; they loved the idea of a newsletter to go out with the bills; they want the water company to become a non-profit so we can pursue grant funding; they want meters installed.

All of us are aware that a lot of our customers have lived here for 20, 30 or even 40 years and they aren't used to the changes. They don't like and they don't want it. As one customer shouted during a special informational meeting about becoming a non-profit, "WE DON'T WANT METERS! WE DON'T WANT THEM!!" The anger over meters shocked the shit out of our panel. We had invited our attorney, our drinking water engineer from Ca Dept of Health, our waste water engineer from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, and a gal from Cal Rural Water Association; who are all in favor of us becoming a non-profit.

So what are people concerned with? Rates. That's it.

They associate changing to a non-profit with rate increases. They associate meters with rate increases. They associate grants with rate increases. They associate loans with rate increases. They believe we are fixing the wrong things first. They believe we're spending money where we don't need to.

They want an all new system with a guarantee of zero rate increases. They want us to replace the distribution system first because the pipes are old. However, our drinking water engineer says that is one of the lowest things on their list to fund, while things like new surface water treatment plants, new wells, new storage tanks - those are priorities.

We actually had some guy who, even after the difference between a grant and a loan were explained, said he didn't want to pay back a grant and would rather pay back a loan. He believed that it's fair that he pays $40 a month for water and two people live in his house, and a few houses down there's a house with 10 people living in it and they only pay $40 a month of water. He didn't believe, however, that his bill would go up at all in order to pay back the loan(s).

We have people that tell us that meters are a complete waste of money and they are inaccurate. We've installed approximately 35 meters. In July, we found 12 houses that used nearly 1 million gallons of water. One house alone used 240,000 gallons; the previous owner's son tried to blame that on the water company - that my guys installed a meter and broke pipes and refused to fix them. But Boyfriend didn't some looking around and discovered that someone had purposefully set the toilet to run non-stop. Meters have also shown some people just how much they actually use. One guy, who has one of the nicest and greenest yards was shocked to see that in two weeks he had used nearly 30,000 gallons. After that we noticed he cut back a bit.

We have not decided on a rate structure; that will probably happen sometime next year once meters are completed. We've been using a nearby water company's rate structure as an example since they are smaller than us. We've discovered that some people's bills would actually go down; some would stay the same, and yes, some would go up. But we're finding there are people who don't think it's fair to pay for the water that they themselves are using.

While this is just some of the negativity, there is more. Much, much more.