{"id":26703,"date":"2024-07-11T16:00:57","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T22:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/we-cant-afford-this-cortez-residents-speak-out-against-high-water-rates\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:44:07","slug":"we-cant-afford-this-cortez-residents-speak-out-against-high-water-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/we-cant-afford-this-cortez-residents-speak-out-against-high-water-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We can\u2019t afford this\u2019: Cortez residents speak out against high water rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brian
Brian Peckins' front yard xeriscape. He lives alone and said his last water bill was a mere $31, and attributes his yard for such a low number. (Photo courtesy of Brian Peckins)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Six community members shared the same grievance at the Cortez City Council on Tuesday night: High water rates.<\/p>\n

Starting Jan. 1, the city raised the cost of water to conserve it and to bolster its enterprise fund, which pays for updating infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest issues we have in our community is aging infrastructure, and we have not been collecting enough money to address all of our aging waterlines,\u201d said Mayor Rachel Medina.<\/p>\n

\"Mayor
Mayor Rachel Medina spoke about water rares and infrastructure at the July 9 City Council meeting. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Already, Cortez has a water line replacement team that\u2019s beginning to replace the roughly 30% of water lines around the city that date as far back as 1950.<\/p>\n

But some folks in the community say the rates are too high.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t afford this,\u201d said one community member at the July 9 meeting. \u201cI\u2019ve got a beautiful yard, but at this rate, I\u2019m going to let it die.\u201d<\/p>\n

High water rates encourage \u2013 in addition to cutbacks around the house \u2013 xeriscaping, a type of landscaping that uses native plants in lieu of groomed, green lawns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re really trying to do is to encourage residents to move away from water-needy Kentucky bluegrass to less thirsty water grasses,\u201d said Brian Peckins, the city\u2019s public works director.<\/p>\n

The city uses, on average, four times the amount of water in the summer than in winter, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat that means is the residents are watering their lawns and they\u2019re irrigating with treated city water,\u201d Peckins said.<\/p>\n

In May alone, roughly 18 Olympic-size swimming pools\u2019 worth of treated city water went to keeping up lawns and landscaping, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatering nonfunctional turf is just not sustainable,\u201d Peckins said.<\/p>\n

On May 1, the city launched its Turf Replacement Program<\/a> to incentivize people to transition from their nonnative landscapes to more natural xeriscapes.<\/p>\n

Property owners stand to earn $2 for every square foot of turf they dig up, said Ian Roberson, a water conservation specialist. They also can apply for funding to help minimize financial costs in making the switch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in the desert,\u201d said Medina. \u201cWe can\u2019t adopt East Coast landscapes. They either need to be willing to pay for it or understand that that\u2019s not going to work here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In previous years, the city raised base water rates by 5%. This year, it\u2019s up four times that amount \u2013 which is lower than what SEH Inc., the company that conducted a water study in Cortez last year, proposed.<\/p>\n

SEH recommended the city double its rates.<\/p>\n

Instead, the city settled on a 20% increase, which, on average, raised the base rate to $31.80, from its 2023 rate of $26.50, Peckins said.<\/p>\n

From there, fees are tiered. The more water one uses, the higher their bill will be.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were targeting the high-water users, and that\u2019s where we\u2019re getting the complaints from now,\u201d Peckins said.<\/p>\n

For households that use close to the 2023 summertime average of 8,000 gallons per month, rate increases are negligible, having risen $10 at most, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMine\u2019s more like a $400 increase,\u201d said one resident. \u201cSomething is not right.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this, Peckins guessed that a household with a water bill that\u2019s nearly $800 is using close to 100,000 gallons of water per month, under these new rates. He said it\u2019s a case they\u2019ll investigate.<\/p>\n

During public comment, another person explained how he had been out of town for 40 days. For the duration of that time, the water to his house was turned off, aside from the sprinkler system.<\/p>\n

The water bill came, and it was $300.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that rate increases are necessary, but this structure seems punitive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Drew Sanders, the city manager, said the move was in the name of conservation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of water that is being used does need to decrease, but I\u2019m also disappointed in some of these amounts,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll look at it, and we\u2019ll come back to council with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peckins said rates will remain the same unless the council changes them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still a small group in the community that\u2019s having these high bills,\u201d said Medina. \u201cWe want to look at the data and make sure the tiered water rate study we got is accurate and that we made a good decision on the pricing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Otherwise, the tiered system in place \u2013 where rates increase as water use increases \u2013 is a good way to reduce consumption, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPopulations are rising, and we\u2019re not making any more water,\u201d said Peckins. \u201cThe bottom line is that water is a precious resource which is becoming more scarce. Prices are only going to go up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

money to upgrade aging infrastructure, mayor says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,1429,28,29,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-city-council","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79449,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26703\/revisions\/79449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26703"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}