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Utilities director reports 11% jump in water use; council hears infrastructure upgrades and conservation steps
Summary
The Utilities Director told council that total water consumption rose about 11% from 2023 to 2024 and reviewed infrastructure work including an odor-control system, meter replacements and an outage-management system; council asked staff for follow-ups on scrubber locations, transformer maintenance, and rate-study timing.
The city’s Utilities Department presented its annual report and answered council questions about water use, electric reliability and upcoming projects.
Utilities Director Stuubitz told the council the city operates four municipal utilities (water, wastewater, electric and landfill) and that total water consumption rose from about 6,681 acre-feet in 2023 to about 8,546 acre-feet in 2024, an increase of roughly 11 percent. Staff said the increase aligned with higher single‑family residential outdoor use and hotter, drier conditions (the department reported nearly 216 dry days last year).
Key operational highlights included installation of an outage-management system (OMS) for public outage reporting and crew response, replacement of 300 residential water meters, completion of odor-control equipment at Lift Station 1A (installed April 2024) and a program to replace older poly residential service lines with copper. The department also reported no National Pollution Discharge Elimination System or Safe Drinking Water Act violations for the year.
On electric work, staff said the city converted about 60% of street lights in a dark-sky project supported by an Economic Development Administration grant, upgraded distribution transformers and replaced roughly 300 wood poles. The utilities team is pursuing resources to replace capacity lost at Hoover Dam and reduce wholesale power costs.
Council members asked for details on scrubber siting, the OMS public interface, transformer painting/maintenance, and how rising procurement costs could affect rates. Stuubitz said staff would pursue additional scrubbers in problem areas, promote the OMS link on the utilities webpage, and rely on periodic rate studies to smooth cost impacts. He said if procurement costs outpace the planned scope staff may defer project elements to avoid rate shock, but long-term reliability needs remain the priority.
What happens next: staff will return with additional details and continue work on the substation rebuild schedule (Substation 3 at 30% design, on track for completion by March 2028) and a proposed plan for additional odor-control scrubbers and conservation steps for municipal sites such as the golf course.
