AUSTIN, TEXAS — Fair Water Texas today congratulated the dozens of intervenors across the state who are opposing Texas Water Utilities’ (TWU) sweeping motion to strike large portions of customer testimony in Public Utility Commission Docket 58682.
The intervenors’ filing, submitted March 13, makes clear that the very issues TWU seeks to exclude are precisely the issues the System Improvement Charge (SIC) statute requires the Commission to evaluate.
“[M]uch of the testimony at issue reflects direct statements from customers about matters they personally experienced,” the intervenors say in their response to TWU’s sweeping effort to disqualify testimony of ordinary ratepayers.
“These [statements of ratepayers] include their own water bills, the financial burden of base charges and recurring increases, service interruptions, low pressure, poor water quality personally observed after the alleged improvements, steps they have had to take in response such as buying bottled water or filtration systems, communications they personally had with TWU concerning disputed bills or outages, and the difficulty they faced navigating this process without counsel.”
Intervenors content their accounts are admissible and essential to determining whether TWU’s claimed “system improvements” have actually improved service, as required under 16 TAC § 24.76.
“It should go without saying that if TWU claims its projects improved service, then evidence of continued failures is central to the Commission’s review,” said Joe Gimenez, founder of Fair Water Texas. “As the intervenors say, TWU’s wants to reduce customer testimony to ‘little more than a name and address,’ which is completely unfair to them and every TWU customer across Texas.
“Testimony about outages, unsafe water, billing errors, and financial strain go to the heart of whether TWU’s claimed improvements actually improved anything at all,” Gimenez said. “Why is TWU so concerned about letting their own customers speak up about their experience with the alleged improvements?”
A Critical Moment for Affordability
TWU’s proposed SIC would add $33.70 per month for customers with both water and wastewater service, on top of an existing $59.39 base charge, bringing fixed monthly costs to more than $93 before a single gallon is used.
Intervenors argue that customers are being pushed from one rate increase to the next with no meaningful opportunity to recover, and that the SIC process must not become a rubber stamp for premature cost recovery.
Next Steps
The Administrative Law Judges will now consider TWU’s objections and the intervenors’ response. Intervenors have asked the Court to deny TWU’s motion in full or, at minimum, limit any ruling only to specific statements—not the broad exclusions TWU requested.
— 30 —
