City Utilities officials expect businesses and residents to shoulder an automatic 18 percent increase in rates amid declining water levels at Fellows and McDaniel lakes.
At an Aug. 20 news conference held at its headquarters, City Utilities unveiled its emergency action plan for water conservation. If water levels drop below 60 percent at the lakes north of Springfield that supply water for Springfield residents and businesses, Stage 1 of the city’s plan would go into effect, hiking water rates in an effort to prompt commercial and residential customers to curtail water use.
CU officials said Aug. 23 water levels were at 63.8 percent of capacity – far below the historic average of 83.5 percent – and dropping at a rate of 1 percent to 1.5 percent per week. General Manager Scott Miller said businesses and residents would have to pay nearly 18 percent more for water during Stage 1. The goal of the price hike is to reduce overall water use by 15 percent, according to Miller.
Miller said potential impacts are greater for companies served by CU if water levels drop below 55 percent – triggering a Stage 2 emergency – or below 50 percent, at Stage 3, which is considered crisis level.
In stages 2 and 3, businesses are required to drop their projected uses by at least 25 percent or a surcharge would kick in that could roughly double monthly water bills for those customers who don’t conserve. For example, a customer with an average residential bill of $22.94 would be charged $45.95 if no conservation is achieved, but with 25 percent conservation, the customer would pay $19.83. Rate increases would be based on volume of use for both business and residential customers, and Miller said new companies or those without a comparable amount from the previous year would be judged based on an average of their bills to date. Those with special circumstances – such as growing businesses or households – can work with CU to establish a fair baseline for charges, he said.
Officials said the measures are designed to get residents and businesses to eliminate unnecessary water use, such as running sprinklers on lawns.
“I can guarantee we will come out of this drought. What I can’t guarantee is when we’ll come out of this drought. We are just trying to buy time right now,” Miller said.
David Gollhofer, Mercy residential director for central community facilities, said an 18 percent hike in Stage 1 would increase the health system’s Springfield water bill by more than $7,000 per month. The main campus at the corner of South National Avenue and East Cherokee Street uses roughly 14,500 cubic feet of water, or 10.8 million gallons, each month.
“Currently, we are doing everything we can to (prepare) for Stage 1,” Gollhofer said. “We’ve stopped irrigating every place that is not a valuable flower bed or valuable landscape area right in front of a building.”
According to the Stage 1 plan, irrigation of lawns and landscapes is limited to midnight–6 a.m. one day a week; spraying of water on sidewalks, streets and other paved areas is prohibited; and no eating establishment can serve water except by specific request.
During Stage 2, the use of permanently installed automatic sprinkler systems and hose-end sprinklers is prohibited at all times, and those businesses that use more than 75 percent of their expected water use would encounter a surcharge. Customers that use less than 4 cubic feet of water per month are not subject to the surcharge. Per unit or per cubic feet charges increase by about 400 percent or more for volumes exceeding the 75 percent threshold.
If water levels dip below 50 percent of capacity, Stage 3 plans would prohibit all washing of motor vehicles and watering of lawns or gardens. Applications for new or expanded water service would be denied during this stage. Surcharges for the second and third stages are the same.
Miller said CU could choose to shut off service to any customer not in compliance.
Gollhofer said Mercy has reduced its outdoor watering to two days a week from four days, and it has reduced its watering time to 20 minutes at a time from 30 minutes. Other measures Mercy has implemented this summer include eliminating vehicle and entryway washings.
“We’ve asked all of our employees to look at their daily functions and cut back on water usage every place that they possibly can,” Gollhofer said.
He said about six years ago, Mercy established a committee devoted to looking at ways to reduce water use, and attendees of those weekly meetings have felt a sense of urgency recently to examine all options to conserve water with rate hikes on the horizon. For example, as high temperatures begin to drop, he said staff is looking at increasing water temperatures in its water used throughout the air conditioning system on the main Springfield campus. “We are not just looking at the low-hanging fruit,” he said. “We are getting pretty technical with the things we are trying to do to conserve water.”
Mike Kromrey, executive director of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks – a nonprofit funded by CU, Greene County and the city of Springfield and tasked with protecting area waterways – said there are many things businesses and residents can do to conserve use and improve water quality. He suggested creating rain gardens or installing water-efficient toilets.
He agreed with CU officials that watering lawns is a poor use of drinkable water as lake levels dwindle, and suggested that if the drought has a benefit, it may lie in its impact on local attitudes.
“People in the Ozarks don’t have in their culture an ethic of conservation of water,” Kromrey said, adding that folks in other parts of the country where water is traditionally less plentiful are used to avoiding unnecessary water use. “I think if we had that ethic, we wouldn’t be this short now.”
As for Mercy, Gollhofer said he doesn’t know what the health care provider would do if Stage 2 and Stage 3 take effect.
“Hopefully, we won’t see that happen,” Kromrey said. “There’s only so much we can cut back.”[[In-content Ad]]
Springfield event venue Belamour LLC gained new ownership; The Wok on West Bypass opened; and Hawk Barber & Shop closed on a business purchase that expanded its footprint to Ozark.
