Six months ago we were informed that the water supplied to our sub-division in the Redlands by Brunner Water will be shut off because of the retirement of the owner/operator of Brunner water. The 300-plus residences on the Brunner water system were informed that they will need to switch over to Ute Water by April 2008.

Ute Water has placed an outrageous price tag of $5,000 for a water meter connection to their water service. The Mesa County Assessor’s office has numerous residences in this area listed as single family residences, but Ute water has decided by its own rules that if water is supplied to two units, such as a mother-in-law apartment or a casita, on a single family lot, the home owner would be billed $10,000. How can Ute Water charge you twice for what the Mesa County Assessor’s office considers as a single family residence?

To ease the burden of paying $5,000 or $10,000 in one large sum, Ute Water has indicated that it is willing to add $30 or $60 respectively to your monthly water bill until the amount is paid off. Doing the math, without the 21 percent interest added; it will take a home owner 13.8 years to pay off that debt or about 6 years longer than average family lives in their home before moving on.

A much easier and cheaper solution for the residences of the area would have been for Ute Water to connect their supply line to the existing Brunner line and charge a certain dollar amount per household, instead of putting a financial burden on home owners, who are on a strict or limited budget during these economically hard times, to come up with the requested $5,000 or $10,000.

P. CARTER
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 9:17 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.