Website: www.puc.idaho.gov
United Water granted authority to serve Eagle subdivision
The Idaho Public Utilities Commission is authorizing a request by Hillview Development Corporation that United Water Idaho be issued a certificate to serve customers within a 41-lot Eagle subdivision.
Part of the Covenant Hills subdivision at 1501 and 1601 Floating Feather Road, Eagle, is within United Water’s service territory and part of it is inside Eagle Water Company territory. Eagle Water (not the same as the City of Eagle’s municipal water system) challenged a proposed order issued earlier by the commission granting United Water authority to serve the subdivision.
Hillview Development
Corporation, developers of the 48.5-acre subdivision, wants the site served by
only one water company. Eagle Water Company, according to the developers, has
not been able to guarantee adequate service until it secures the necessary
property easements to complete a water line to serve the subdivision. The
developers maintained that Eagle Water has not put forth the necessary effort
to obtain the easements. Hillview is also concerned about a moratorium placed
on Eagle Water by the state Department of Environmental Quality that prohibits
additional connection to Eagle Water’s system until enough water is provided to
meet minimum peak-hour demand.
Eagle Water did get
permission from DEQ to proceed in its attempt to secure easements and construct
the system with the contingency that if Eagle Water is unable to obtained the
required easements by April 1, 2006, or is not able to meet DEQ’s minimum
requirements by that date, that it would relinquish the Covenant Hill
subdivision to United Water.
The commission, however,
found that contingency unacceptable. The commission said such a plan does not
provide the developer with the certainty of a specific provider and subjects
the developer to the conflicting service requirements, engineering design and
specifications of two separate water companies.
“The developer should not
be held hostage to the company’s (Eagle Water) current difficulties in
remedying identified system deficiencies and its failure to timely address
Hillview’s request for service,” the commission said.
A full text of the commission’s order, along with other documents related to this case, are available on the commission’s Web site at www.puc.idaho.gov. Click on “File Room” and then on “Water Cases” and scroll down to Case No. EAG-W-05-03 or UWI-W-05-03.