Dear Genesee Water and Sanitation District customers,
In March of 2024, the District experienced a nearly 36-hour duration power outage, the longest in its history. That forced a shutdown in water treatment and pumping to our finished water storage tanks and forced us to significantly draw down our stored finished water. We maintain a roughly three to five day supply of finished water in our storage tanks so while concerning, the power shutdown did not threaten our customers’ water supply to their homes.
Following this event, District management and Board members met with Xcel Energy after the outage and were advised that Xcel was likely to shut down in the future for extended periods when threatening weather conditions were forecast. That announcement by Xcel was sufficiently concerning and forced GWSD to initiate an unanticipated project to make our water and sanitation operations independent of Xcel’s energy supply. That project took 15 months and an investment of $510,000 from our capital reserves to complete. The recent four-day long power outage affirmed the necessity of that project and the District maintained uninterrupted operations throughout the outage.
District water and sanitation rates as well as District capital reserve rates have not increased since 2022. However, the unplanned $510,000 capital investment reduced capital reserves. To ensure prudent financial planning and restore reserve levels the District will increase the fee for capital reserve that the district charges bi-monthly from $72 to $85 each period beginning with the first billing period of 2026. This adjustment represents an annual increase of $78 per customer and will allow the District to replenish its capital reserves over the next four years.
We now have two Caterpillar diesel engine power generators in place, one powering the water treatment facility which then pumps the finished water to our Larkspur Drive pumping station. The second generator is at the Larkspur pump station which pumps water out into the district. The third is a Cummins diesel generator which powers the wastewater treatment facility and the pump at reservoir 1. All generators operated as designed throughout the four-day power outage in December. Two generators are pictured below.
We appreciate continued customer support of the District and will take actions to preserve the quality and integrity of the services you receive.
Sincerely,
The Management and Board of Directors, Genesee Water and Sanitation District