By Rebecca Dopp
Times-News Correspondent
Mayor Bob Shepherd and town clerk Stephanie Wood
attended a water quality meeting and were told that the town
of Levan needed to adopt a water rate ordinance to encourage
water conservation.
The mayor said that they were told to work in a
progressive rate, meaning the more one uses, the higher the
cost, and vice versa. He said that wouldn't work in the
winter time because then they wouldn't have any revenue.
Council member Cory Christensen said that Levan
couldn't realistically conserve as much as Utah County or
other larger places because they were on a "use it or loose
it" system. Levan does not have reservoirs to store the
water like Deer Creek or Jordanelle.
According to the mayor, one of the things that he and
Wood had a problem with concerning the penalty of using more
water than was allowed was the rate charged. He said that he
was under the impression that they were charging $.75 per
1,000 gallons over. Jason Worwood said that a past
administration said they were charging $.25 per 1,000
gallons over and that the overage was cheaper than the
actual used water.
Mayor Shepherd said they could not find anything in
the minutes that said what rate was specified.
Wood said that's why they needed a new ordinance,
specify what rates will be charged.
The mayor said that they had been charging $23.00 per
month for 40,000 gallons of water, but that in the proposed
ordinance they were going to charge $23.00 per month for
30,000 gallons, up to 40,000.
Bruce Rowley asked why they needed to change the
ordinance at all. Wood said that the water quality board was
strongly recommending the council to find a way to
conserve.
Shepherd said the council could allow up to 40,000 and
then have the authority to drop the allowed usage dependent
on the amount of water available.
"We don't want to have to pump the well," he said. He
speculated that if they pumped the well at this time they
would pump a lot of sand out of it.
Worwood said they were not low on water available at
the current time.
He also agreed with Christensen in that Levan was on a
"use it or loose it" system.
The council agreed to adopt the ordinance with the
changed wording to amend the amount of usage to 40,000 per
month, instead of 30,000, and to charge $.75 per 1,000 over
with the council holding the authority to adjust downward if
needed. This ordinance went into affect June 9, 2004.
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