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Idaho Public Utilities Commission

Case No. EAG-W-08-01, Notice of Show Cause Hearing

June 24, 2008

Contact: Gene Fadness [phone], 890-2712

Website:
http://www.puc.idaho.govwww.puc.idaho.gov

Mobile home park wants to be served by another water utility

State regulators are asking representatives of Eagle Water Company to appear at a Show Cause Hearing on July 2 to explain why residents of a mobile home park inside Eagle Water’s territory cannot be served by Boise-based United Water Idaho. Currently the 74 mobile homes inside the park at 1060 Horseshoe Bend Road (Old Highway 55) are served by a private well that is contaminated with uranium.

A complaint filed with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission by Rich Felix of Floating Feather Partners LLC, says the best way to address the contamination problem is to connect the mobile home park to a municipal water source. The park is inside Eagle Water Company’s certificated service territory but efforts to receive service from Eagle Water have not been successful. That’s due primarily to a Department of Environmental Quality consent order that forbids Eagle Water from adding new connections until it addresses its lack of back-up infrastructure within its existing system. (Eagle Water Company is not the same as the City of Eagle Water, a municipal water system.)

Felix’s complaint says Eagle Water Company has been attempting to satisfy DEQ requirements, including an offer to the City of Eagle to buy the company, but that transaction was not approved by the city.

Eagle Water, to date, has not agreed to file a petition seeking authorization to allow the mobile home park to be served by another provider. Utilities are prohibited by state law from offering services inside the certificated area of another regulated utility without commission approval.

“I don’t pretend to know all of the requirements or complexities necessary for the Eagle Water Co. to address their system deficiencies,” Felix said in his complaint to the commission. “I do know that four months later, the company, while apparently working very hard, is no closer to providing water to the park. In the meantime, the residents, many of whom are lower-income, have no viable option but to continue to use and drink the contaminated water from the well.”

Floating Feather maintains United Water has a water main line on Horseshoe Bend Road directly adjacent to the park.

The Show Cause Hearing, during which Eagle Water must explain why the mobile home park should not be allowed to be served by United Water, begins at 2 p.m. on July 2 in the commission’s hearing room at 472 W. Washington St.

Floating Feather’s complaint and other documents related to this case are available on the commission’s Web site at
http://www.puc.idaho.govwww.puc.idaho.gov. Click on the water icon, then on “Open Water Cases,” and scroll down to Case No. EAG-W-08-01.