The Utilities Committee met 09/12/2023. Much of the meeting was taken up by a presentation from Utilities Director Chris Shaw about the weather impact on the Appleton Wastewater Treatment Plant. The basic premise was that, in some respects, less rain is good for the water treatment facility.
In all honesty, Director Shaw came off sounding like a very passionate nerd fixated on an extremely niche area of expertise. Which is not a bad thing, and, in fact, is desirable in a utilities director. But it’s, perhaps, difficult to properly convey the passion with which he spoke or make what he said sound interesting to the average reader. Nevertheless, I’ll hit the high points, and I have also prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
Water usage in the city does not remain the same throughout the year but, instead, goes through cycles. In the winter months, the city uses around 9.5 million gallons of water per day, mostly on every day things like showers, flushing toilets, washing dishes and clothing, etc. During the summer months, that demand increases by 1 million to 1.5 million gallons because, on top of all the regular things they use water for in the winter, people are also doing things like watering gardens and filling swimming pools.
This year, Appleton is currently in a moderate drought. Typically, we get about 30 inches of rain every year, but this year we’re only at around 26 inches. So, it’s not an extreme drought, but it is a moderate drought.
The result of that moderate drought is that people are using more water than they usually would even in the summer because, for instance, people can’t rely on rainwater to water their gardens and need to use city water instead.
The end result is that revenue to the Appleton Water Utility had increased. Roughly speaking, and not including any reduced rates for wholesale or high use customers, the utilities sells water at about $5 per 1,000 gallons. Because of the increased usage resulting from the drought, they are now making around $225,000 more a month in revenues than they would in a normal year. Over the last, roughly four months, the utility’s revenue had increased by around $800,000 compared to what they would normally pull in.
Additionally, because there was less rainwater this year, there was less infiltration/inflow of outside water into the wastewater system through leaky pipes. That ended up helping the wastewater treatment process.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) asked about the excess revenue and what it would be used for. Director Shaw said that the utility ends up either over or under its budget, but not by much. $800,000 looked great, but it only represented 2%-3% of their total budget, and particularly with inflation increasing it didn’t amount to much. However, having more revenue than budgeted for allowed the utility to not have to increase rates. Whereas, if revenue was under-budget year over year they would need to increase rates.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) commented, “I think deferring the rate increase is something that is valuable, even if it’s not necessarily a significant financial amount. Even if we’re just deferring it by one year, I think that that’s something that helps the ratepayers.”
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1120215&GUID=74426E5D-0A11-4E0E-BA32-A6CBB6223E40
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