Bonnie Marron has been digging further into the AQUA auto-hike bill

Be sure to read Mary Budreau's post preceding this from Bonnie

On June 14th you ran a blog post from Mary Budreau re: HB1379 regarding the right of water companies to purchase other companies and pass a percentage onto all their clients. The portion of the bill that affects CWL, since Aqua Illinois supplies our water and sewer, reads as follows:

“Any acquisition of a water or sewer utility that affects the cumulative base rates of the large public utility’s existing ratepayers in the tariff group into which the water or sewer utility is to be combined by less than (1) 2.5% at the time of the acquisition for any single acquisition completed under this Section or (2) 5% for all acquisitions completed under this Section before the Commission’s final order in the next rate case shall not be deemed to violate Section 7-204 or any provision of this Act.”

This means that Aqua can pass along the 2.5% or 5% onto all of its customers in the state of Illinois. This has been verified via e-mail by Rep. Joe Sosnowski. I have asked other Illinois Representatives and Senators about this bill and have received no responses other than from Rep. Sosnowski who had an excused absence the day the bill was voted, so he did not vote. Senator Syverson, who voted in favor of the bill, has not answered the e-mails I have sent to him. If Gov. Quinn does not act on this bill within 60 days of when the bill was sent to him, which was June 14, it will become law and Aqua will have another legal way to collect more money from its clients. We are now at that halfway mark and this bill will be law on or about August 14^th if it is not vetoed.

All residents need to be encouraged to follow Mary’s direction and file a complaint with either Gov. Quinn’s office or with CUB.

My suggestion is that you rerun Mary’s blog, possibly with some of the info I have given you.

Following is an excerpt from Representative Sosnowski's reply to Bonnie ........

Bonnie,

Thank you for reaching out to my office regarding Candlewick Lake's legislative question regarding HB1379.  I appreciate the opportunity to respond to you regarding this matter.

If a private water company, such as American Water, purchases a municipal utility company, then it is possible that all Illinois customers of American Water will see a rate hike.  That is precisely why there was opposition to this piece of legislation.  Opponents of HB1379 do not believe ratepayers should be charged rate increases that will not go to improving their own local water system.