Bedford County water, sewer rates may rise; public hearing Tuesday

Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: August 19, 2008

BEDFORD — With Bedford County seeing escalating growth in public water and sewer use, rates for those services are spurting upward.

The county’s public service authority is holding a public hearing on the proposed rate increase at 7 tonight at 1723 Falling Creek Road.

The rates are expected to climb 5.3 percent for water and 11.1 percent for sewer, said Brian Key, service authority director.

Currently, customers pay $4.26 per every thousand gallons in commodity charges for water and the same for sewer. The proposed change bumps the service fee to $4.50 for water and $5 for sewer. The average customer’s bimonthly bill would increase $2.

Rising fuel and equipment costs are the main reasons for the new rates, Key said.

The current commodity rate was first approved in January 2006 — when the public service authority had 7,000 water customers and 800 sewer customers.

Since then, the number of water customers has grown by 1,000 and sewer roughly 300.

“Obviously, in several years the gas price has gone up,” said Key. “Our fleet of vehicles have gone up tremendously in years.”

Connection fees are also going up for meter installations, Key said, with specifics in charges related to size.

The largest installed meter would present a $400 increase, he said. The smallest would call for a $200 hike.

The authority is planning for close to 500 new connections in its new budget, many of which would be installed by residential developers, Key said.

So far, he said there haven’t been many complaints from the public on the rate changes.

“I think people understand the costs of doing business have gone up for everyone.”