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Rural water manager warns House bill 1537 could deepen territory dispute and threaten system finances
Summary
Managers and rural advocates told the House Political Subdivisions Committee that a proposed change to law in House Bill 1537 would reopen a long-running territorial dispute between East Central Regional Water and the city of Grand Forks, risking loss of customers and severe revenue shortfalls for the water system.
Neil Breidenbach, manager of East Central Regional Water, told the House Political Subdivisions Committee that House Bill 1537 would effectively change prior legal treatment of municipal annexation of rural water territory and could further reduce his system’s customer base and revenue.
Breidenbach said the dispute has already been litigated at the state supreme court and that his system prevailed. He said negotiations with Grand Forks stretched for years without resolution and that, after the city disconnected interconnect service lines, his system lost “two thirds of our income” when territory and its customers were transferred. “There's no way of assessing or we can't, there's no way of us charging for anything else to pay for our system. So it's quite devastating when we lose…customers,” he told the committee.
Why it matt…
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