Information on New Utility Rates

Investing in Sandy’s Infrastructure

As we shared in the Sandy Source newsletter, Sandy is making historic reinvestments in our infrastructure for drinking water and wastewater, to ensure that current residents and future generations can continue to enjoy the quality of life we've come to expect in our town.

Why We’re Doing It

Reinvestment in our drinking water and wastewater infrastructure is critical to Sandy's future. Over the past several years, the City has launched multiple initiatives to upgrade our systems to address problems and ensure sufficient capacity for the future.

Drinking Water: the improvements being planned under the Drinking Water System Reinvestment Project will ensure that Sandy has plenty of drinking water for decades to come. We’re actively pursuing repairs and upgrades to our City-owned water sources, especially the Alder Creek treatment facility and related storage infrastructure, to allow Sandy to maximize our use of this local asset. In addition, we’re planning to construct a new transmission line to access Bull Run water, providing Sandy with a critical backup source and system redundancy in the event of a major wildfire or other natural disaster. The new transmission line will also ensure Sandy remains in compliance with federal requirements to treat water for cryptosporidium.

Wastewater: Sandy Clean Waters is the ongoing program focused on repairing and upgrading Sandy’s wastewater infrastructure. The City is working to address the fact that in the past, prior to the recent significant achievements of Sandy Clean Waters, Sandy’s rapid growth outpaced the ability of our wastewater infrastructure to consistently handle increased demand. Through the $20 million of repairs so far to our collection system and upgrades to our existing wastewater treatment plant, we’re already seeing remarkable results. Planning for construction of new expanded treatment infrastructure to accommodate Sandy’s future is now underway. The City has also reached a settlement with regulators to resolve past claims and violations, allowing Sandy to move forward with certainty.

How Will This Impact Rates?

While reinvestment in our infrastructure is necessary, it is also expensive. The City has been successful in securing a variety of grants and low interest loans to finance the needed projects.  In order to qualify for this favorable financing, we have to demonstrate that out utility rates are sufficient to make the debt payments.  We are also regularly increasing system development charges paid by new construction to ensure development is paying for its impact on the system.

We’re Keeping Rates as Low as Possible

The City is proactively pursuing all opportunities for external funding and financing to keep rates as low as possible for customers.  We have secured, or are in the process of securing, nearly $150 million in grants and low interest loans for our wastewater and drinking water projects.  We are also currently revising plans for our wastewater improvements to ensure the total project costs remain affordable for our community.  For low income customers, Sandy has a Customer Assistance Program available.  Information can be accessed here.

There are Many Ways You Can Reduce Your Water Consumption

Reducing water consumption conserves a vital resource and can lower your monthly bill dramatically.  Things like leaky toilets, old appliances, long showers, and inefficient sprinklers all use surprising amounts of water.  Here are 10 tips for lowering consumption indoors; and 10 more tips for lowering consumption outdoors.

Learn More

Learn More About Sandy’s Infrastructure Reinvestment projects here.  You can also review past City Council meetings, and get information on attending future meetings and providing public comments on our meetings portal here.

As always, if you have questions about your bill, please feel free to contact us at 503-668-7449.