CVWD approves new service charge rates
The Coachella Valley Water District approved new service charge rates for customers Wednesday, set to take effect in November.
The District said the service charges will be lower than originally proposed, and lower than existing rates for a majority of its single-family and commercial account holders. Irrigation customers will pay more.
“This is good news for customers,” said Board President John Powell.
The board moved away from using meter size to determine fixed rates, to differentiating between types of customer.
The fixed rates are designed to recover fixed costs associated with delivering and treating water without interruption.
The fixed rate will drop from $7 per month to $6.92 for single-family homes with a ¾” meter.
Commercial accounts will pay $4.96 for a ¾” meter.
Multi-family accounts will pay $7.90, and landscape irrigation meters will pay $17.14.
The Water District also approved a rate and rate structure hike for its domestic customers in June, the first such rate increases since 2010.
The new water rates, based on how much water is used, were raised in June to $.95 for Tier 1; $1.32 for water use in Tier 2; $2.46 for use in Tier 3; $4.67 for Tier 4; and $6.13 for water use in Tier 5.
The district’s five geographic regions had previously been charged five different base rates for water.
Prices ranged from $1.12 to $1.69 per hundred cubic feet of water, approximately 748 gallons.
The Water District operates and maintains nearly 100 wells and 2,000 miles of pipes.
The district provides water for approximately 109,000 residential and business customers across 1,000 square miles.
Additional information about the water rate changes including detail about the new rates for each customer class and meter size is available at http://www.cvwd.org/ratechanges.
