From: Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities

Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007

Subject: UtahWater.net mailing

The recent mailing from UtahWater.net to Salt Lake City water customers contains misstatements and misleading information sent by a group of water speculators trying to acquire Salt Lake City water rights for personal gain.

Salt Lake City (SLC) vigorously protects our water rights and safeguards our water sources for the sustained health and well being of our community. The city is currently involved in litigation with these same speculators to protect our community’s water supply. Rather than address the merits of the litigation the speculators resorted to a campaign of misinformation. The city will address the issues involved in that litigation within the context of that action.  We regret the inconvenience or concern this mailer may have caused our customers, the City Council, and our colleagues in the City of Orem.

Set forth below is a selection of a few of the misstatements made in the mass mailing and the corresponding facts.  We will be pleased to furnish any additional information you may need to better understand and respond to these materials. Please contact Stephanie Duer at 801.483.6860 (office) should you have any questions or concerns.

Misstatements/ Misrepresentations

Facts

“Orem provides water with 60 percent less operating budget than does SLC”

Orem’s budget reflects the nature of its retail water service, which is a simple distribution and maintenance system, compared to SLC’s system, which includes water collection and treatment, watershed management, finance and billing, and water quality testing functions.

SLC budget reflects a considerably larger water system than that of Orem’s, including:    

  • 7.5 times the service area size
  • 3 times the miles of pipe
  • 3.5 times the population
  • 4.25 times the number of connections

SLC maintains the largest retail water system in the intermountain region, and has the oldest water system in Utah. Additionally, SLC protects and maintains 185 square miles of watershed and operates three water treatment plants; Orem performs none of these functions.

SLC levies a property tax to support water system

SLC water system is totally supported by water rates. No city property taxes are used for water system.

SLC charges different rates for different types of customers

SLC charges rates in one of three tiers, based on the volume of water used by a customer; rates are the same for different customer classes within each tier.

“Salt Lake City Water…increases costs for all Utahns.”

SLC water rates are among the lowest in the west among cities of comparable size and commercial/industrial base; these competitive rates are good for all of Utah.

“Salt Lake City seeks impact fee increases”

SLC recently increased its water impact fees for new connections for the first time in five years to account for increases in construction costs due to inflation.

 For more information on how we compare to industry standards please click link

Representative Stephen D Clarks Response