Stanislaus County community faces huge water rate increase to $600 a month

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Residents of the troubled Diablo Grande resort in western Stanislaus County are facing an extraordinary water rate increase.
Under the Western Hills Water District proposal, the monthly residential flat rate would jump fourfold from $145 to $569, effective July 1. The plan, plotting increases over five years, would set the rate at $610 in 2029 and $626 in 2030.
Such rates would be eye-popping in any community, but Diablo Grande property owners are being asked to accept it because the new rates will keep a supplier from cutting off water to their homes June 30.
Kern County Water Agency, the water supplier, said in a May 28 letter that it will shut off water deliveries June 30 if the majority of Diablo Grande parcel owners reject the rate increases and the resort can't make monthly payments to Kern.
The Western Hills Water District, serving Diablo Grande, is conducting a Proposition 218 process before implementing the first rate hike and is scheduled to tally the protests at a June 28 hearing. Proposition 218 allows property owners to reject new assessments through a majority protest.
'If the rate increase is successful and WHWD begins to make monthly payments to the agency for administrative and variable costs, the agency will continue supplying water to WHWD through Dec. 31, 2025, to allow WHWD to develop an alternative water supply,' Kern's letter said.
The Kern board took action May 27 to end the year 2000 contract because Western Hills owes $13.5 million for water and hasn't made a payment since 2019. With water use charges on top of the flat rate, Diablo Grande residents could be paying around $600 a month starting in July.
'It's our understanding if a majority are opposed to it, we will definitely have our water turned off,' said Linda Powell, a 76-year-old homeowner whose husband is a disabled Marine Corps veteran. 'It's going to be tough for us to make that kind of payment. We don't feel like we have a choice.'
An original developer and World International, which acquired the Diablo Grande development out of bankruptcy in 2008, formerly subsidized the water purchases from Kern County while trying to develop the project into a 5,000-home destination resort. But only 600 homes were built. World unloaded the debt-ridden project to another firm in 2020, which hasn't paid debts and taxes.
Debbie Antigua of the Diablo Grande Community Action Committee said the rate increase will allow Western Hills to make payments to Kern and buy time for finding a different water source for the 600 households.
According to a district water rate study, the extraordinary bills will cover water purchases from Kern, treatment expenses, community water service and securing an alternative supply, but won't cover money owed to the Kern agency.
Western Hills has looked into an agreement with the Patterson Irrigation District to deliver San Joaquin River water to the district, which has treatment facilities. But it could take two or three years to get approval and build a 5,000-foot pipeline to connect with Western Hills, Antigua said.
The community also is trying to get assistance from the state Department of Water Resources to find another district to sell water that could be delivered to Western Hills' facilities via the California Aqueduct. If a new water source is secured at affordable cost, the water rates could be adjusted down to a more acceptable level, Antigua said.
Antigua acknowledged the new rate will be too much for many renters, some of whom live on $1,800 a month in Social Security or less. But the situation is desperate.
'My feeling is that a majority of people (at Diablo Grande) understand if they protest they will not have water and they are putting their homes in jeopardy,' Antigua said. 'You have a lot of renters up here that don't want to pay the increase.'
According to a rate increase notice, Western Hills provides treated drinking water to about 1,800 people through 600 residential connections.
Jennifer Hamilton, a Diablo Grande homeowner for eight years, said Monday it's upsetting that the Kern County agency won't renegotiate its 25-year-old contract with Western Hills. The residents are billed for 8,000 acre-feet of water annually but Diablo Grande neighborhoods use only 400 acre-feet of that.
'If we were to get the correct amount of water, the residents would be able to pay,' Hamilton said, adding that customers deserve a clearer accounting of what's done with the excess water. 'I don't want to pay for water we are not using.'
A spokesman for Western Hills couldn't be reached Monday. The Western Hills website says one of the district's services is raw water provided to vineyards, construction and the two golf courses, which are closed.
In a May 23 letter to water district customers, Stanislaus County officials discussed potential ramifications of a water shutoff, citing a state law requiring homes to have access to potable water.
Robert Kostlivy, county environmental resources director for the county, wrote that his department has a complaint-driven approach to consider red-tagging homes that are uninhabitable and that it does not inspect without a formal complaint.
The county is 'operating under the assumption that individual residents and property owners have taken steps to secure basic sanitation needs including access to water, in light of the potential shutoff,' said the letter also signed by Fire Warden Erik Klevmyr. 'There is no intention to conduct sweeping or preemptive enforcement actions.'

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