The city council will consider a proposed 35 percent increase at Thursday's meeting.
Aug. 23, 2023, 6:03 p.m.Paul Gattis | [email protected]
“You don’t have to worry about the quality of your water service,” Kelley answered. “We do our best work when people aren’t paying attention to us. When something goes wrong at Huntsville Utilities, all eyes shift to us very quickly. We do not want that to happen on the water system. We want our water system to stay reliable, healthy and available to meet the city needs both in terms of fire protection, growth, and existing customer needs.
“People focus on ‘I have water, but it’s brown,’ or ‘it’s too slow,’ or ‘it’s too fast,’ or ‘it doesn’t smell right’ or whatever. So quality is an interesting aspect to the water service.” Huntsville Utilities has been making its case to customers in social media posts, spotlighting increasing costs that are drivers for the higher rates. Since water rates were last increased in 2016, water valves have seen an increase in price of 132 percent, according to one Facebook post. Another post states that the increased cost per shower would go from 2.1 cents to 2.8 cents. To wash a load of clothes, an increase from 1.6 cents to 2.1 cents. To water your yard, an increase from $1.35 to $1.
That water infrastructure is also supplying not only the largest city in Alabama in population but also in square miles. That translates into about 1,400 miles of water main pipes throughout the city. “In the past, Huntsville Utilities might spend between $10 to $15 million a year on capital improvement projects,” Kelley said. “We’re now spending about $25 million a year and we don’t see that stopping. We expect to spend around $25 million dollars a year on improvements moving forward.”
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