Higher water rates for Corpus Christi customers may kick in sooner than usual.<\/p>\n
City officials have discussed expected increases in water rates for several months as new water supply projects have come online in the face of severe drought<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, exactly how much the increase may be \u2014 and over how many years it would be staggered \u2014 hasn\u2019t been fully established.<\/p>\n Those increases may begin appearing on bills three months earlier than when new rates typically go into effect, said City Manager Peter Zanoni in a May 29 media briefing.<\/p>\n Historically, water rate adjustments don\u2019t go into effect until January.<\/p>\n This year, though, it\u2019s possible new rates could begin in October, Zanoni said.<\/p>\n How much rates may rise is not \u201cknown yet with certainty,\u201d he wrote in a May 29 message to the Caller-Times, adding that city officials will \u201cbe developing them in the coming weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n In the earlier news conference, Zanoni had described the City Council as having approved about $1 billion in water supply projects, a number that does not include funding for desalination endeavors.<\/p>\n Although the city is seeking federal and state grants, the lion\u2019s share of the costs will be covered via ratepayers, he said.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because the utilities system is supported through rates, as opposed to taxes or other revenue collected by the city for other departments.<\/p>\n Water and wastewater rates only benefit those systems.<\/p>\n It\u2019s expected that this year city officials may approve new water rates as soon as early August, according to Zanoni.<\/p>\n The current drought \u201cshould teach us that the system’s not resilient enough, it’s not robust enough, it’s not diverse enough,\u201d he \u00a0said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to significantly invest, and that means all our ratepayers \u2014 our residential customers, our commercial, our large-volume industrial customers and our wholesalers \u2014 all have to help build the better system because we don’t want to go through this again,\u201d Zanoni said.<\/p>\n Kirsten Crow covers city government and water news. Have a story idea? Contact her at kirsten.crow@caller.com.<\/p>\n Consider supporting local journalism with a\u00a0subscription to the Caller-Times<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n