Response to Irrelevant Arguments Against K2

Many of the arguments against the K2 well that are being made in the public meetings are really not about the K2 well itself. They are complaints about how Brooke operates the water companies.

These arguments boil down to “I don’t like that Brooke does this and we should punish Brooke by denying our neighbors water”. It is easy to see that this doesn’t make sense. Blocking the development of the K2 well for these reasons does much more harm to the community than it would to Brooke.

Some or all of these issues may be legitimate problems that need to be worked on through dialog with Brooke and the ACC. If sanctions are required against Brooke for these issues, the ACC should be the one to make them. It is not the responsibility of the community to try and sanction Brooke with actions that harm ourselves.

The responses are provided for the following:

1. The infrastructure leaks and has not been maintained properly.
2. Water hauling charges are confusing and excessive.
3. The CC&N should be revoked because PWCo has not provided an adequate and reliable water supply in the past.
4. Stop sending money to California

1. The infrastructure leaks and has not been maintained properly.

This argument is that the water delivery infrastructure leaks too much because PWCo has neglected it. In public meetings it has been claimed that water loss is 25-30%.

• The water loss (the difference between what is pumped/purchased and what is sold) for Pine was 10.6%, 10.4%, and 9.2% for the years 2004, 2005, and 2006 respectively. The volume of water lost was 5,586,000 gallons, 5,493,000 gallons, and 5,029,000 gallons for those years. (See PWCo Water Sales)
• The national average for water loss is 15%. Arizona's goal for rural water systems is 10%. Both Pine and Strawberry are under that goal.
• Water loss comes from leakage, theft, and meter malfunction. Leakage is by far the largest contributor to water loss.
• Leaks occur due to pipe breakage caused either by the ground shifting and stressing the pipe or by people digging in the wrong place. It is not possible for there to be zero leaks.
• Those making the argument have never said what an acceptable loss rate is.
• The argument implies that PWCo should be replacing lines before the leaks occur. There are 180,939 feet of pipe, or 34.27 miles in the Pine infrastructure. How it would be possible to identify which lines have the potential to leak next isn’t clear. The ACC would not consider this a “reasonable and prudent” expenditure, so PWCo would not be able to recover the cost of doing this.
• If leakage could be reduced by half, that would have provided an additional 1,048,000 gallons for the five summer months in 2006. This is not enough to solve the water shortage.

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2. Water hauling charges are confusing and excessive.

It is difficult to understand why this argument is being made against the K2 well. The main goal of the K2 well is to come on line quickly so that the hauling charges can be avoided in the future. Development of the K2 well is the solution to this problem.

• PWCo does not make any profit on water hauling charges. PWCo loses money because they can not charge the time that their employees spend on water hauling activities
• The water hauling charges are calculated with the formula that was mandated by the ACC
• 3,217,000 gallons were hauled in 2007 for a total cost (trucking and water only)  of $224,757.00. During the total hauling period Pine customers used approximately 17,503,967 gallons.  Therefore, average 2007 augmentation charge was $0.01284 per gallon used by each customer during the augmentation periods.

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3. The CC&N should be revoked because PWCo has not provided an adequate and reliable water supply in the past.

This argument against the K2 well doesn’t make sense. Regardless of whether PWCo has done enough in the past, they and the PSWID are now making a concrete effort to provide an adequate and reliable water supply. To say that since they haven’t taken the steps in the past as the reason that they can’t take the steps now makes no sense at all.

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4. Stop sending money to California

This argument is that Brooke is in California and that the money that Brooke makes from PWCo and SWCo is not staying in the community.

• Over the last five years, PWCo has had total operating earnings of negative $10,563. In the last four years, SWCo has had total operating earnings of negative $70,673. So the money is flowing from California, not the other way around. (See PWCo Earnings and SWCo Earnings)
• Much of the money spent in operating the water company does stay in the community. It pays for the salaries of the local employees, purchasing water, property taxes, and other local expenses.
• Most people aren’t concerned that all of the money spent at the gas station or the local grocery store stays in the community. Most people aren’t concerned about whether the money for the cable, gas, or electric bills stays in the community. Why should the water company be held to a different standard?

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