LAWTON – The application of Pecan Valley Waterworks Association LLC to transition into newly created Comanche County Rural Water District #5 was approved unanimously April 7 by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
PVWA is a private utility that buys treated water from the City of Lawton and resells it to 596 predominantly residential customers west of Lawton. PVWA is one of seven privately owned water companies in this state. The Corporation Commission regulates prices and service reliability of privately owned water utilities that perform retail business.
By virtue of the rural water district’s acquisition of the water association, PVWA will be dissolved, RWD#5 will be a self-governing district, and the Corporation Commission will “no longer bear responsibility to exercise jurisdiction” over Pecan Valley.
“There are economic advantages to operating as a rural water district, as opposed to a private water company,” the PVWA wrote in its application to the Corporation Commission. Those benefits include “access to grants and low-interest loans for capital improvement projects.” Continued operation as a private water company “had become uneconomic and unfeasible,” attorneys with the Phillips Murrah law firm in Oklahoma City told the Corporation Commission.
The application to incorporate as a member-owned rural water district was approved unanimously by the Comanche County Board of Commissioners on Sept. 13, 2021, board minutes reflect.
PVWA was established on June 21, 1996, Oklahoma Secretary of State records show.
PVWA is owned by the Wilson Trust, “what is left of the late Harold Wilson’s estate,” system manager/operator Jack Outhier told Southwest Ledger. Wilson developed the Pecan Valley and Shelter Lake additions.
Members of the PVWA, the Pecan Valley Rural Water District Steering Committee, the Wilson Property Co. and the Wilson Children’s 1996 Trust voted on May 19, 2021, to organize a rural water district, their petition states.
They claimed it is in their “best interest” to organize as Comanche County Rural Water District #5. The PVWA has no known secured creditors, the petitioners added.
PVWA, Wilson Property Co. and Wilson’s Children’s Trust “believe that this is a community project and movement that is simply being facilitated by these entities as a way to gift the water system to the Pecan Valley community,” Outhier said.
The rural water district will be a nonprofit entity owned and controlled through the community and by the property owners, Outhier wrote. “The community benefits from this ownership of the water system by being able to elect board members and being able to have access to public funding, which will enable the community to not only have control of the improvements and repairs but also maintain the same.”
Through creation of the rural water district, “We feel this is an excellent opportunity not only for public funding but for the community to stay involved and in control of their water resources now and for many years to come,” Outhier said.
Besides manager/operator Outhier, the elected board of RWD #5 includes chairman Josh Powers, Ed Hewett, Larry Adair, Jim Hampshire and Bill Malone.
PVWA buys water from the City of Lawton and resells it to residents of Pecan Valley North and South plus Shelter Lake.
PVWA’s rates were established almost five years ago; the Corporation Commission approved them in late November 2017. “There are no plans to change the water rates in the near future,” PVWA officials wrote in their application to the commission dated Jan. 14, 2022.
The company charges a flat base rate of $29.56 per month per customer for the provision of water service, plus 12.7 cents per 1,000 gallons, plus whatever the City of Lawton charges per thousand gallons of water the customer uses, according to the “Joint Stipulation and Settlement Agreement” the Corporation Commission approved in November 2017.
Ÿ In the first six months of 2020 Lawton charged PVWA a base rate of $21.71 and $5.80 per 1,000 gallons.
Ÿ For the next 12 months the base rate increased to $22.08 and the cost per thousand increased by a dime, to $5.90.
Ÿ For the last six months of 2021 the base rate was raised to $22.41 and the cost per thousand inched up 9 cents, to $5.99.
PVWA purchased 80,754,000 gallons of water from the City of Lawton in 2020, and 67,937,000 gallons in 2021, city records reflect.
“We’re operating in the red,” Outhier told the Ledger in 2020. “We don’t make any money on the sale of water. It’s a ‘pass-through.’”
PVWA also operates a central sewer system that serves half of the residences that buy water from the company, Outhier said. The other half are on septic systems, he indicated. The PVWA sanitary sewer system is regulated by the state Department of Environmental Quality.