BOISE, Idaho — Eagle residents are banding together to fight back against proposed water bill increases.
Back in November, Suez Water applied to purchase Eagle Water Company, a local water system that provides service to about 4,200 Eagle homes and businesses.
The $10 million acquisition comes with a price tag for existing customers.
"So, under the proposal by Suez, residential customers in Eagle that are served by Eagle Water can expect a triple increase in their water bill over the next three years," said attorney Norman Semanko.
Semanko is representing the Eagle Water Customer Group, a band of residents opposing the sale.
"So, a group of citizens felt like that was going to be too much of a rate shock on fixed income folks, on regular folks," Semanko said.
He says the rate hikes would also be passed on to other Suez customers outside of Eagle.
"Not only would it raise rates for existing Eagle Water customers, that $10 million cost is proposed to be spread amongst all Suez customers," he added.
Suez Water spokesperson Jane Kreller says the rate increases are unavoidable.
"Eagle Water Company, they haven't invested anything into the system, so the rates are artificially low," Kreller said. "So, anybody that comes in and purchases the Eagle Water Company, they are going to have to raise the rates eventually because they will have to do improvements on the system."
Kreller says if the deal goes through, Suez would invest $13 million worth of improvements to the existing water system.
"That's going to be changing out meters, doing some work at the well houses, things that needed to be done over the past several decades but just haven't been done," Kreller said.
The sale of Eagle Water Company to Suez must first be approved by the Public Utilities Commission, which would take rate increase concerns into consideration.
But the city of Eagle could intervene first and purchase Eagle Water Company through the first right of refusal.
That will be discussed at Tuesday's public City Council meeting at 5:30 p.m.