The Bloomington Chamber of Commerce would like to thank the following sponsors:
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Water & Sewer
The Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce supports a strong water utility that is capable of meeting the demands of our vibrant community while planning for future growth and expansion of business and employment opportunities. We also support a utility that carefully manages and optimizes capital investment in plant and equipment to provide users with fair and reasonable costs for water.
Recently, the City of Bloomington Utilities Service Board and City Administration have proposed capital improvements to our water infrastructure which would result in rate increases for residential, commercial, and wholesale water customers. The rate increase would support a $42 million bond issuance designed to build a redundant water line from Lake Monroe to the treatment plant, increase storage capacities, and expand water treatment and pumping capabilities. In addition, 22% of the increase dedicated to covering
CBU’s operating deficit. It should also be noted that the percentage increase would only apply to the water portion of the bill, and that sewer and storm water fees would remain unaffected.
Through the work and analysis of The Chamber’s Water and Sewer Team, The Chamber’s 2007 Infrastructure Task Force Report recommended implementing a strategy to help control and meet the water demand by first focusing on conservation techniques and storage capacity, and suggested careful monitoring of population growth and water usage with respect to determining the need for a plant expansion. Since that time, the frequency of production days nearing capacity has increased, prompting the Indiana Department
of Environmental Management to issue an early warning letter stating the need for the City of Bloomington Utilities to create a plan to increase the treatment capacity. In addition, the availability of newer population data and projections indicate growth in nearing 1% per year. Both the maximum day and average daily water usage figures are increasing. Therefore, we understand the need to move these projects forward. To protect the ability of the CBU to continue to provide commercial, residential, and wholesale
users an adequate supply of clean water while supporting opportunity for future economic growth, the Chamber supports the proposed water infrastructure capital improvement plan to expand water treatment capacity and to build a redundant line from the plant to the City. The Chamber urges the City to carefully examine potential operational efficiencies and the feasibility of select conservation methods as outlined in the 2009 Water Conservation Plan to minimize the increases passed on to rate payers.
While this investment will result in an across-the-board increase on all rate payer classes, given our understanding of the issue, the Chamber views expansion of water-related infrastructure as appropriate and substantiated by several years of study and data collection by both the CBU and the Chamber. Given the magnitude of the financial investment and subsequent rate increases passed on to water customers, the Chamber urges prudent and responsible use of taxpayer dollars. Along
those lines, the Chamber strongly urges that the City secure fully amortized bonds to pay down both principal and interest for the bond term. Additionally, the funds should only be used for the projects specifically outlined in the proposal, with any savings applied to the principal on the bonds.