Should the City of Two Rivers be getting its water supply from the neighboring city of Manitowoc?
That question was raised on WOMT’s Be My Guest program Wednesday (July 7th) when Two River City Manager Greg Buckley was the guest.
A caller raised the issue, saying he had heard Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels saying that Cool City residents might pay less that way. Buckley responded that the cost of acquiring the water is only a maximum of 25% of the cost of the system.
“A lot more is transmission, distribution, metering, replacing old lead pipes, which we issued debt for,” he explained. “Those are things that don’t go away if you simply acquire your water from another source.”
Buckley pointed out that Two Rivers still has four years left to pay off debt for the upgrading of its water filtration plant.
He added that there are other factors in the cost to residents.
“MPU is blessed with having some large water customers,” Buckley said. “Whether it’s Briess, whether it’s Lakeside Foods, and those sort of large volume customers helps immensely with covering costs for your system. Two Rivers’ customer base is primarily residential.”
The City Manager said expenses also include maintaining some 50 miles of water mains and services to five thousand customers, but the city is trying to provide the lowest possible rates for water users.
