No Water Rate hikes anticipated for Seneca Customers

Seneca water customers can rest easy after it was announced by Seneca City Administrator Greg Dietterick Monday night that rates are not anticipated to increase with the recent judge’s ruling to allow the Pioneer Rural Water District to construct a treatment plant. “We’ve got plenty of growth, we’ve got some good smart heads here that have put a lot of thought, time and energy into building the infrastructure properly. If we lose a customer like that it wouldn’t make any difference to us. The bigger picture is that everybody in the county is going to hurt from this and that is why we had to bring that to the court system, make it very apparent that they aren’t being truthful about the situation and how they handled it. They were up negotiating right up until we filed suit with us that we were going to take the water. they had no intention of ever backing down. They wanted the plant and God love them they got the plant. I really feel sorry the people lose in this, the people have lost, and they are going to pay it through their wallet and I hate to see that for our community.” Dietterick predicts however that Pioneer customers rates will double and there will be financial turmoil for the City of Westminster, which depends on Pioneer revenues to a great extent to operate city government.