SAN TAN VALLEY, AZ — A company servicing San Tan Valley wants to increase wastewater costs by more than 50% and homeowners aren’t happy about it.
EPCOR, which provides wastewater and water services to the area, has applied to the Arizona Corporation Commission for a 51.94% increase on monthly wastewater bills and a 13% increase on water.
For an everyday user, that could look like a rate hike from $46 to $70 a month for wastewater alone.
“My next-door neighbors are in their 80s, they’re retired, they’re on a fixed income,” homeowner Samantha LeBaron said. “And then there’s an increase on their utilities?”
Residents are worried about the impact of this potential hike, compounding with other costs that have skyrocketed in recent years, from groceries, gas and electricity, to home and car insurance.
“We’re seeing [people] putting their day-to-day living costs on credit cards such as groceries and utility bills and eventually they need to sell their homes,” realtor and San Tan Valley homeowner Melanie Scow said. “We need to be able to budget year to year and increases of 20 to 50 percent across the board in every utility are really going to hurt families.”
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For Joel Sutherland, the rising general cost of living has led him to look to leave the state altogether. “It’s just another reason that we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do which is get out of Arizona,” Sutherland said.
For years, ABC15 has documented the difficulties San Tan Valley residents faced with the prior service provider, Johnson Utilities, including sewage spills, chemicals in the water, odors and more.
EPCOR eventually took over service a few years ago. Since then, the company says they’ve overhauled the systems, making major upgrades and creating the brand-new Copper Basin Wastewater Treatment Facility.
“During this time frame, EPCOR has brought safe, reliable service to a historically troubled utility system that had been severely underfunded, neglected and routinely fined and cited by state regulators,” An EPCOR spokesperson said. “Because of systemic neglect that we inherited, we have had to make two decades of investment in just a few years. Although this amount of investment in such a short period is understandably significant for customers, it was unavoidable if we were going to reverse the severe infrastructure decay that had taken root in this community.”
EPCOR offers financial aid for customers whose annual income does not exceed 200 percent of U.S. Federal Poverty Guidelines for the year for water and not more than 150% for wastewater.
The Arizona Corporation Commission will start holding public comment meetings and hearings in February through the spring.
Dozens of community members have already voiced their concerns to the ACC online. EPCOR’s proposal is filed under docket number WS-01303A-24-0130.
