ADMINISTRATOR’S REPORT
JUNE 2010
May has been a month of odd jobs for most of the
staff. We have worked on leaks in both
water and sewer, restoring flow in frozen pipes and trying to keep on top of
the treatment plant as it changes and adapts to fewer people in the
Village. Things should pick up a bit
after the 31st. The major
construction projects are beginning to gear up.
Don has been busy trying to make sure that each project has all the
proper permits and is proceeding according to schedule. We are watching closely the water tank and
PRV project, encouraging the contractor to begin cutting trees and start
staging. We will see how it
proceeds. We have cut some dead trees
adjacent to the office and will work on increasing the parking area so that in
the winter we can be sure that the employees can park without taking valuable
skier parking. We’ll work on the
stairwell a little later in the summer.
Again, we have spent some time
working on water rates. In the past, the
fixed charges have paid approximately 53% of the costs of operating the water
and sewer systems. I did a rough
estimate of the potential number of EQRs that would
be available throughout the village. 175
would be residential and 536 would be what we would call “traditional commercial.” That means that the commercial side would pay
68% of the fixed cost. If we took 50% of
the operating cost ($325,000.00) and divided it by the number of EQRs ,
each EQR would be approximately $38.00 per month for water and sewer. Most single family homes would need more than
one EQR. Some commercial establishments
would need as many as 50 EQRs. I looked at the water usage, again without a
deep analysis of commercial versus residential, and found that the “traditional
commercial” usage was only 39% of the total use. Essentially, the preliminary look shows the
commercial side subsidizing the residential side. However, these numbers could rapidly change
when we look more closely at the water usage and the EQR for both types of
buildings. I plan to send out a survey
with a stamped return postcard to all metered users to help us gather the EQR
information. In the mean time we will
continue to look at the data we have.
Finally, there has been much discussion concerning the need for and the
use of “fixed” charges. Every person
that comes to the valley expects to have water and sewer available when they
are here. Since we cannot control the
number of people who are here at any one time, we have to have in place a
system that can handle the days when everyone wants to be here. And, since those days may at certain times be
predictable, the range between the times that few are here and many are here is
extremely variable, so we have to have the system ready at all times. To do that, we cannot rely completely on
usage charges. We are lucky in the sense
that we can estimate when our peak times will be and prepare for them. We have also maintained a fairly steady
consumption rate over the past 10 years.
So, even though the water engineers say that because of the lack of
control over the number of people present, we should have a system that is 80%
fixed rate, we have gotten by with a system that is always in the 50% to 55%
fixed rate area. Do we need to continue
that approach?
May 2010
April 2010 no report
March 2010
February
2010