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Hundreds of thousands of residents and businesses in Salt Lake County are likely to pay more for water under an annual increase proposed by the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District.

The district seeks an average rate increase of 4 percent for wholesale customers and 3.8 percent for retail customers. About 85 percent of the 630,000 businesses and residences supplied by the district are wholesale customers who actually pay their bills to improvement districts or cities.

The rate increases are driven by two factors — inflation and population growth, said general manager Richard Bay.

"The price pressure on our current water deliveries is inflationary," Bay said. "But the cost pressures on our future water supplies are greater than inflation because there's a real cost component that's growing. The reason is we're having to reach farther and farther from Salt Lake Valley for each new water source as our population grows."

Jordan Valley spends about $65 million annually on operations, maintenance and debt service. But the district spends almost as much on new projects — about $50 million this year.

Among projects that have come online recently is a 22-mile steel pipeline enclosing the Provo Reservoir Canal all the way to the Point of the Mountain. Another is a deep-well field and aqueduct pipeline delivering water from Utah County north to Bluffdale.

Jordan Valley supplies wholesale water to Bluffdale, Draper, Herriman, Midvale, Riverton, South Jordan, South Salt Lake, West Jordan, West Valley City, Taylorsville, Kearns, Magna, White City and the Utah State Prison.

Retail customers live in scattered pockets of Holladay, Cottonwood Heights, Murray and Sandy.

The district is holding a public hearing Wednesday at 6 p.m. at its offices, 8215 S. 1300 West, in West Jordan. The board of trustees is not expected to vote on the increase until next month.

In what officials say is purely coincidence of timing, the Midvalley Improvement District, which serves a tiny part of the same area, also will hold a public hearing Wednesday evening on an 82 percent rate increase for its sewer customers.

That hearing will be held at 6:10 p.m. at 160 E. 7800 South in Midvale. The board is expected to vote on the increase that evening.

The sewage district serves about 10,600 households, so a relatively small number of customers served by both Jordan Valley and Midvalley will be hit by water rate increases coming and going — pouring and flushing, so to speak.

Midvalley customers — in parts of Midvale, Sandy and Murray ­— face a proposed hike that would push their monthly sewer bill from $10 to $18.20.

"We haven't had a rate increase since 2002," said general manager Brad Powell. "It's been a long time, and if we had kept up with inflation on that, we would be right where we need to be. Because we haven't done that, we have gotten in the hole."

In recent years, he said the South Valley Water Reclamation plant, where Midvalley sends its sewage, has raised rates about 20 percent a year. Regulation compliance and other costs also have mounted.

"Right now, we're the lowest one in the Salt Lake Valley by a long ways. Even after raising [rates] by that much, we'll still be one of the lowest ones in the Wasatch Front," Powell said.