Camanche Water System
Amador County serviced the Camanche water system until 2003. Since then, Amador Water Agency (AWA) has provided water to Lake Camanche Village. Camanche is one of four separate water systems that AWA services. Four groundwater wells supply water for the Camanche system. The water is treated and then stored in several tanks before it is delivered to homes via the distribution piping system.
Annual Operating Costs for Camanche
Year-End Date | Operations Cost | Operator |
7/1/2003 | $372,563 | County |
7/1/2004 | $467,775 | AWA |
7/1/2005 | $492,345 | AWA |
7/1/2006 | $493,870 | AWA |
7/1/2007 | $585,513 | AWA |
7/1/2008 | $565,464 | AWA |
7/1/2009 | $595,875 | AWA |
7/1/2010 | $515,499 | AWA |
7/1/2011 | $591,267 | AWA |
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How Ratepayers are Affected
If the Camanche system is not operated efficiently, costs to ratepayers will be excessive. When AWA took over the operations of the
Camanche system, it only took 4 years for the cost to operate the system to increase by 60%. In just the first year, operational costs increased by 26%.
Since AWA started operating the system in 2003, salaries and benefits for employees have increased by 71%. It is no wonder that costs have
increased so drastically.
In 2002-2003, before AWA took over operations from Amador County, operating expenses for Camanche were $372,563.
In 2008-2009 (just 6 years later) AWA ballooned the costs of those same operations to $595,875.
The increase in operational costs indicates how inefficiently AWA has operated the system. However, maintaining the system has also been an issue. In April 2003, the County turned over the system to AWA with $868k in reserve accounts. By 2009, AWA had spent all of the reserves and more, leaving Camanche $800k in debt. Much of the money was spent on projects to expand capacity in Camanche. Without these projects, developers would not have had the water they needed for new homes. Few homes were built and now the liability is on the ratepayers to cover the costs of those projects. Worse yet, when a 2 year-old well failed in 2010, there were no funds to even diagnose why it failed.
All of this money was spent without ratepayer consent. Now Camanche ratepayers are obligated to repay the funds that were overspent during the last 8 years.
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