Issues in the Rocky Point Water District

The first question on the survey handed out at the town hall meeting held September 16 at Crown Hill School asked if I even knew there was a Rocky Point Water District (before that night). I did, but just about everything else said at the meeting, including the issues we are facing, was news to me. So I’m glad I attended and applaud the three elected commissioners (Gil Knutzen, Bhaskar Deodhar, and David Rhine) for holding it. My estimate is that around 10 percent of the RPWD customers attended. One mistake on my part: I should have eaten dinner before the 6:30 PM start.

The RPWD has existed since the 1950’s. Although we have 662 connections, we have no water source and no physical assets. The district contracts with Bremerton for water services and for billing. The district’s income comes from a $5 surcharge added to our bimonthly water bills. The surcharge pays for the district’s 57 streetlights and a lot more: water sampling, our permit, improvements, and other costs Bremerton sticks us with for being a separate district (we pay the same basic water rate as city customers). There’s also a bond levy that paid for the new mains added in the 1990’s. Payments are collected by the county as part of property tax. The commissioners are analyzing whether it makes sense to pay the bond off early.

So what are the big issues? For one, we are affected by the 2007 Water Use Efficiency Rule even though Bremerton is meeting its goals for reducing water use and these goals include Rocky Point customers. At a cost of around $75K, the city says we need to install source meters on the five intertie lines that supply our water. The thinking: Usage readings on the source meters can be compared to readings on customer service meters to determine the amount of leakage in the distribution system. When you consider that Bremerton, which includes Rocky Point, is already meeting distribution system leakage standards, adding intertie meters seems like overkill. But we still may not be able to get out of it.

Another big (and expensive) issue is that Rocky Point needs its own Water System Plan (WSP) and doesn’t have the expertise in house to write one. Without an approved WSP there is a moratorium on adding new connections in the district (bad news if you are a developer). You would think we’d be covered by Bremerton’s WSP, which includes projections for our water usage. However, while some legal discussions are going on, we may not get a waiver and are looking at a cost of up to $70K to contract out the plan, including signoff by a licensed engineer.

Annexation by the city would make the big issues moot as presumably the RPWD would be dissolved. Annexation stirs up a host of other issues and also strong feelings among the many residents who want to remain independent of the city. Although there are currently no active annexation efforts going on, the takeaway from the meeting is that annexation is a possibility because state law provides ways to do it without a vote under certain circumstances.

The meeting helped frame the big issues, but made it clear more communication is needed. Unfortunately the commissioners cannot use the bimonthly water bills to provide updates. Incredibly Bremerton can bill us for a surcharge but has no way of easily separating out the Rocky Point envelopes so an occasional flyer can be slipped in. I learned this in an email exchange with David Rhine, who did most of the talking at the town hall and paid for the town hall mailing himself. I have offered to help by creating a volunteer web site for the RPWD should the commissioners want one.

Commissioner meetings are held at the Westgate Fire Hall at 11:00 AM on the second Monday of each month.

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