By JONNA LORENZ
October 16, 2000 (The Capital-Journal)— Predictions that water bills could triple in coming years may not apply to urban residents, a spokesman for the Topeka water system said.
Rural water officials at the National Rural Water Association conference Monday expressed concerns that tightened regulations could dramatically increase the cost of water.
But Bruce Northup, manager of the Topeka water treatment plant, said municipal systems like Topeka's are better able than rural systems to meet tighter regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Topeka is already working to implement stricter drinking water standards. An ongoing $35 million project to improve the Topeka water plant will put the system in compliance with proposed regulations, Northup said.
"When you're making improvements in your plant, some of the improvements would have to be done anyway because the plant gets aged," Northup said. "It's real difficult to put an exact figure on what these regulations cost us." Water rates haven't risen to offset the cost of these improvements, he said.
The average residential water user within Topeka city limits pays $15 to $20 a month for water. Outside city limits, residents pay $25 to $35 a month on average.
To keep water bills down, efforts have been made to cut costs and increase the number of customers served, said Don Rankin, water superintendent for Topeka.
In 1999, the Topeka water plant cut costs by $1.1 million, he said. The number of employees at the plant dropped to 108 from 148 in 1997.
The system also makes money by providing wholesale water to nine rural water districts.
With 800 miles of water main, the Topeka system reaches about 150,000 people in most of Shawnee County and parts of Jackson, Jefferson and Osage counties.
In Emporia, water users are already paying for improvements to the water system that have put it in compliance with proposed regulations.
Emporia's rates increased 15 percent in July to help pay for the facility's improvements, which were financed with a low-interest loan from the state, Emporia Water Plant manager Ron Rhodes said. With that increase, the average residential water user in Emporia is paying between $15 and $20 a month.
"Our water bills aren't going to triple. I think we've looked ahead at this deal and we've got a handle on it," Rhodes said. "I think the work we've done in the past four or five years has kept it from becoming that big of a problem."
The Emporia water plant this year completed the majority of a $12 million project, which increased the plant's filter and treatment capacity, bringing it into compliance with the proposed regulations.
But rural water systems and small communities, which often have fewer than 1,000 users, will have a more difficult time footing the bill for improvements.
Some rural water representatives fear that as regulations tighten, rural water districts will go out of business or be absorbed into larger systems.
"If EPA regs are based on the biggest systems, then they've made failures of the small systems," said Ron Johnson, chief executive officer of the NRWA.
© 2000 The Topeka Capital-Journal via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.
