It's a water fight that’s pitted neighbor against neighbor, and town against town. Tuesday evening, the Arizona Corporation Commission decided to do something about sewer rates affecting thousands of Epcor customers in the West Valley and parts of Mojave County.
The commission voted in favor of a plan to spread costs among all customers, lowering bills for the majority of Epcor customers, but raising bills for customers in Sun City.
In 2014, ABC15 spoke to customers within the Agua Fria Waste Water District who started seeing their water bills skyrocket.
Some customers saw bills running as much as $200 dollars which went, in large part, to sewer costs. Epcor services parts of Anthem, Buckeye, Peoria, and both Sun City and Sun City West. Some customers who live outside the Sun Cities say they are fed up paying more for their sewer usage. In fact, dozens of complaints poured in from customers and a rate case investigation was opened.
After months of back and forth, the solution was to combine expenses for all the Epcor sewer customers and spread the costs out evenly. The plan does lower the rate for thousands of Epcor customers but it means a probable 76% increase for those living in Sun City.
The plan passed on a margin of 4-1 and will be implemented over a period of 5 years.
