KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — It’s as ordinary as tap water, and yet in Michigan it has become an incendiary issue because of the Flint water crisis.
In Kalamazoo County, water rates have been a bitter and longstanding source of tension between Kalamazoo and neighboring cities and townships. It isn’t talked about much in public because it has sparked lawsuits and is currently the focus of delicate and difficult negotiations.
However, Kalamazoo city commissioners will talk about it this evening.
The Foster Group, the utility’s independent rate consultant, has crunched all the numbers and is recommending an 8 percent increase in water rates for 2017, 9 percent for each of the next three years, to cover costs and the structural improvements the system will need to remain safe and reliable.
That might seem like they are asking a lot but all that legal wrangling over the years has kept the local rates lower than any other city of similar size in the region.
A study for the state treasury department released in May shows that Kalamazoo residents pay less than half as much for their water as the average ratepayer in similarly sized cities in a three state region.
Monday’s city commission work-session begins at 6 p.m. at the Wastewater Plant on Harrison Street.
