Several dairy and poultry farmers turned out for the Columbia-Adair County Utilities District Board of Directors meeting a week ago Thursday afternoon to voice their anger over the 20+ percent water rate increase that will result in many of them having to pay an additional $200 or more per month.

With the rate increase already approved by the state Public Service Commission, there was little the farmers could do but complain, however the board members did say they would check to see if a lower price could be charged for very high volume users.

The main course of discussion seemed to center around why such a large percentage increase is being imposed at one time. “Why are water bills going up so much?” Bill Anderson asked. “What’s it (the increase) paying for?”

Long-time board member Rudy Higginbotham explained that “we have three or four major projects going on at one time, and that’s the reason we had such a rate increase.”

Higginbotham pointed out that the utility district’s rate is still competitive with the rates charged by utilities in the surrounding areas, and noted that a lot of dairy and poultry operations in the county wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the system providing the needed water.

It was also pointed out that the board could have had three or four smaller rate increases over the past few years that would have equaled the large rate, but chose not to do it that way.

County Judge/Executive Ann Melton asked if the board should have considered delaying a project or two to cut down on the rate increase.

“The county has to pick and choose what we do, or we’d have to raise taxes,” she said.

Melton also noted that when she agreed for the county and city systems to merge, she was told that county funds would not be used to pay for the massive repairs needed to the old city system. However, one of the projects set to begin is a $4 million-plus replacement project in the city.

Board member Robert Flowers said that while part of the money being borrowed is for repairs inside the city, the majority of the money will be spent out in the county, and city residents will pay their fair share.

“When the city merged with the county, city residents’ bills almost doubled then,” he pointed out. “And we’re going to be paying the same increase this time as county residents.”

Many of the farmers present said that it will be difficult for them to pay several hundred dollars a month in additional costs considering how high everything else associated with farming is.

“Five or six hundred a month is a big hit,” dairy farmer Greg Burton said.

“Your bills might not go up as much as you think,” board member Higginbotham said.

Utilities district office manager Jennifer Carter then went and figured how much the bills some of the farmers present would go up with the new rates using their usage from last year. Most of the increases were between $150 and $300, depending upon the amount of water used.

One farmer present said that he’d heard a poultry farmer near the Green County line who can have access to water from the Green County system said they were thinking about switching because they’d been told they would save money. Water from Green County would cost about the same as it was in Adair County before the hike.

One of the board members said that Green County’s base rate is about the same as Adair’s after the rate increase, but said it was possible that Green County offers more discounts for volume use. Adair County charges a lower rate for users of over 25,000 gallons per month, but has no addition breaks after that.

However, the board said they would check into seeing if they could put an additional discount on for volume users, for example, over 100,000 gallons, and would try to do so if the PSC would let them.

While the talk about the just-granted increase continued, dairyman and Magistrate Billy Rowe said that he’d heard that the district would have to have another rate increase in the near future to make sure it could service its debt–something the board members and general manager Lenny Stone said is not true.

“I hate that we have to raise rates, but the district has never done a project that didn’t have to be done,” Stone said. “Once our present projects are done, I think we will be able to see the end of any major projects for a while, and I don’t think we’ll have to have a rate increase for four to six years.”