State Imposed Fees

In the Safe Drinking Water Act of the United States Federal Code, all public water systems have legal obligations to provide safe drinking water to the public. The Code dictates monthly inspections for water to ensure no contaminants are present and to get engineering approval for water infrastructure (pipes, tanks, wells, reservoirs, etc.) The Code further provides that individual states can ensure compliance with the Act by adopting statutes and regulations to regulate public water systems. Utah has chosen to take on that role, instead of having the Federal Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") be in charge. Utah maintains that "Primacy" through the Utah Division of Drinking Water ("DDW"). For years, the Federal Government has sent millions of dollars to the State to help fund the DDW and other State agencies. (Otherwise, the budget for the EPA would have to be increased. With the ongoing Federal deficits and the election of more fiscally conservative representatives and senators, President Trump and others have slashed the funds dedicated to the enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act. [How much will be cut by Congress is unknown.]  Rather than raising taxes for the water community, the Utah Legislature passed legislation to mandate studies and regulations to impose fees on water consumption. In other words, it forces water systems to increase water rates to pay the state to enforce federal law. Expressed another way, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and unfunded mandates have to be paid for by someone. The fees may be small to start with, such as the proposed $0.0331 per thousand gallons of water used, but by the time the process ends, all water users’ bills will go up. We are going to be working with Legislators to spread the cost of federal cutbacks more evenly. WCWID will need your help and will update you more in future newsletters. For more information on the proposed fees, please see the link below.

Link to DDW Website