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AWA, Bellwood settle rate dispute

The Altoona Water Authority and Bellwood Borough Authority have reached an agreement on how much the borough will pay for water, easing borough fears that the AWA’s renovation of the Bellwood dam and treatment plant would drastically hike rates.

“The (new) agreement is very fair,” said Hope Ray, the borough authority’s secretary-treasurer, “for their customers as well as ours.”

Under the earlier AWA proposal, which reflected the original agreement between the parties when the treatment plant was built, Bellwood would have paid 33 percent of the capital cost of the upcoming improvements, according to Ray.

That would have forced the borough authority to raise the average customer’s monthly bill for 3,000 gallons from $50 a month to $130 a month, she said.

Under the new agreement, the borough will instead become a regular bulk water customer of the AWA like Freedom and Blair townships, but with a “step-in” discount for the first three years.

The average borough customer’s monthly bill for this year will be about $55, reflecting the borough’s obligation to pay 65% of the full bulk rate bill.

If the bulk charges remain the same, that average monthly bill would rise to $68 in 2025, according to information provided by Ray.

The renegotiation of the agreement will save borough customers thousands of dollars a year, Ray said.

The new agreement is simpler than the agreement that Bellwood rejected — which pleases both sides, according to AWA General Manager Mark Perry.

That earlier proposal incorporated operation and maintenance costs and debt service, Perry said.

AWA officials met many times with Bellwood officials to work out the new deal, said AWA solicitor David Gaines.

The talks involved a look back at about a century of water supply history, with significant insight from AWA consulting engineer Mark Glenn, Gaines said.

The effort “proves that patience pays,” Gaines said.

Under the new agreement, the borough would be in violation if usage exceeds a certain level.

That incentivizes the borough authority to maintain its distribution system, thus avoiding leaks, according to Altoona officials.

There is plenty of leeway in the triggering usage amount, Perry said.

The only way the borough is likely to exceed that triggering amount is with a major development that would be a heavy user, which would trigger negotiations between the borough and the city authority, officials said.

“If additional capacity is needed, there are usually costs associated with that,” Perry said.

The agreement is for

15 years, according to Perry.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.

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