The Board of Public Utilities will consider a proposed water rate increase at the June 21st Board meeting. Do you have any feedback for the Board?

Hello, I support the increase in rates for the following reasons: (1) clean water is a precious commodity, especially in our dry state; higher rates will motivate people to conserve more and be more thoughtful about their water usage; (2) I worry about the age of our pipes and infrastructure; I'm more than happy to pay more if the money goes into renovating our pipelines and making sure that our water is the cleanest and healthiest possible. Thank you!

We have to pay for the service somehow, and the BPU has a history of under-funding itself, which has led unsurprisingly to messes such as our current inability to pay for needed repairs to the White Rock water treatment plant.

Further, we live in a desert climate. Water is precious and its cost should reflect that.

In keeping with this, the details of the increase seem problematic. This is an opportunity to further encourage conservation. Thus, rather than a simple 8% increase across the board, leave the fixed cost and lowest tier alone, and focus the increase on the higher consumption tiers.

I don't support the rate increase. The whole point to conservation is to use less water. Congratulate the county residents for that achievement. Don't undermine (and even disrespect) that result by increasing rates.

You can't chase revenue. Its been proven time and time again whether your selling water as in this case or widget's. Raising the price of anything will result in people purchasing or using less of whatever the commodity is. So you raise your price again to try and make up for the lost revenue and people buy even less.......

Didn't work for the ABQ water board why do you think it will be any different here?

Increasing water rates because of the usage went down is not acceptable, nor will the increase itself be desirable in the sense of being beneficial for the long term to recover expenses cost. Personally, I would like to request county to do some more study on why there is such decrease in usage as well as finding better resolutions on how efficiently use the budget that is coming from service revenue.

With rates going up even more, usage will be forced to decrease even more as there are still plenty of families in this town who live from paycheck to paycheck. With recent drought conditions in the state, residents had to reconsider their landscapes and improve their watering systems, which are more efficient.

Please again, I urge you not to consider such steep increase on water rates at this time.

Access to clean water should be recognized as a human right. Many of us living in Los Alamos are on a fixed income, barely earning above the poverty level even though we work 40+ hours a week. As a long-term renter, I cannot afford any increase to any of my utilities. I do my best to conserve as much as possible. I make little waste by reusing bags, not buying prepared foods, and by composting my food waste. If you take a close look at my utility bill, you can see that many months I am only charged the "Fixed Service Charge" for Electric, Gas, Water, Sewer and Fefuse & Recycle. In 2016 this was $96.16 per month, $1,153.92 per year whether I use my utilities or not. Please consider reducing the cost of utilities for those of us who conserve and do not create waste!

We as residents have worked hard in the past few years to conserve water, even while dealing with drought conditions. I've seen countless neighbors plant more drought tolerant natural grasses and plants. Another utilities increase is a burden on the residents that we do not need.

It's counterproductive to increase the fixed charge. The main thrust should be to encourage conservation, and the best way to do that is raise the commodity rate to cover all costs; it would be best to just eliminate the fixed rate altogether. I'm sure this has been considered -- what's not clear is why the board continues this artificial policy. All activities involved in delivering water, whether they are pumping, billing or meter reading are part of the cost. Arbitrarily deciding one factor should be billed one way and others another are kind of odd. If you go to the store do they charge you a fixed purchasing charge and then a rate for each item?

So you lost in your attempt to fleece Los Alamos Citizens through the REC bond and now you are wanting to take your full vindictive rage out on us by raising our utility rates? What more would I expect from a bunch of spendthrift politicians that dont know the meaning of fiscal responsibility? All our County Council wants is to spend more and more and take care of what we got less and less! How do we recall these political misfits anyway?