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124 Mr. Culver commented St. Paul Water has indicated there is a clear downward trend <br />125 of overall water usage and a positive trend of people taking measure to conserve <br />126 water. They have a very fixed cost for water and it is very cheap. They need to <br />127 consider what they are going to doing with the extra money generated if they are <br />128 going to charge more than it costs to deliver the water. Currently, the money goes <br />129 back into water infrastructure. This includes operating costs, the cost of the water <br />130 from St. Paul, and the cost of infrastructure. <br />131 <br />132 Chair Cihacek inquired how fast the current infrastructure is being replaced. <br />133 <br />134 Mr. Freihammer responded they replace between one and one and half miles of <br />135 water main each year. They also recently put a lot of money into the booster station <br />136 and will continue to do so in the future. With new meters and a new tower, a lot <br />137 has already been invested. <br />138 <br />139 Member Wozniak stated it appears there are a lot of opportunities to spend some <br />140 extra money. They could also educate homeowners on rain gardens and plantings <br />141 that are not water intensive. He does not like the rates as they are, and they should <br />142 branch out like Edina or St. Louis Park has. A higher rate should be created for top <br />143 end users. <br />144 <br />145 Member Misra agreed with Member Wozniak and noted there are cities that use <br />146 ground water and put entire wells on line in the summer that they do not use in the <br />147 winter. It appears they have people determined to use large volumes of water and <br />148 it seems reasonable to put a cost on it. <br />149 <br />150 Member Wozniak stated he is running a siphon in his house to keep his water line <br />151 from freezing and it will not get fixed until 2023 when his road is replaced. This <br />152 extra money can be used to step up the timeline for issues like his or they could <br />153 replace water mains before they break. <br />154 <br />155 Chair Cihacek commented they may want to consider raising the summer rates five <br />156 or 10 cents and see what the financial impact looks like, both for the consumer and <br />157 for the resources it produces. <br />158 <br />159 Member Seigler commented he does not see a problem if water usage is going down <br />160 and the amount of people using excess water is going down. It seems they are <br />161 penalizing people who are using more water than they have authorized them to use. <br />162 There could be a good reason why people are using more than 30,000 gallons and <br />163 it seems they are just arbitrarily raising the fees. <br />164 <br />165 Chair Cihacek inquired about raising just the summer rates. <br />166 <br />167 Member Seigler stated the usage is going down and there is no problem. He <br />168 suggested they wait and see what happens two years from now. <br />169 <br />Page 4 of 16 <br />