LAWTON – Pecan Valley Waterworks Association, a private utility that sells drinking water to 600 homes west of Lawton, filed a petition with the Comanche County Commissioners to incorporate as a rural water district.
A public hearing on the application is set for August 23, County Clerk Carrie Tubbs said.
Members of the Pecan Valley Waterworks Association LLC, the Pecan Valley Rural Water District Steering Committee, the Wilson Property Co., and the Wilson Children’s 1996 Trust voted on May 19 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 PVWW Assn. has no known secured creditors, the petitioners added.
The petitioners are represented by Wurtz & Associates law firm of Norman.
Pecan Valley Waterworks is owned by the Wilson Trust, “what is left of the late Harold Wilson’s estate,” system manager/operator Jack Outhier told the Southwest Ledger last year. Wilson developed the Pecan Valley and Shelter Lake additions.
PVWW is one of seven privately owned water companies in this state. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission regulates prices and service reliability of privately owned water utilities that perform retail business.
PV Waterworks, 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,” attorney Kimberly Wurtz reported Wednesday.
After the gift, the rural water district would be a nonprofit entity owned and controlled through the community and by the property owners, Wurtz 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 this district’s creation, 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.
PVWW buys water from the City of Lawton and resells it to residents of Pecan Valley North and South plus Shelter Lake. The company charges a flat base rate of $29.56 per month per customer for the provision of water service, plus whatever the City of Lawton charges per thousand gallons of water the customer uses, Corporation Commission records indicate.
PVWW also operates a central sewer system that serves half of the 600 residences that buy water from the company, Outhier said. The other half are on septic systems, he indicated. The PVW sanitary sewer system is regulated by the state Department of Environmental Quality
“We’re operating in the red,” Outhier said last year. “We don’t make any money on the sale of water. It’s a ‘pass-through’.”
An application to raise the base rate was filed with the Corporation Commission on February 14, 2020, but the commission dismissed the request on July 14, 2020, at Outhier’s request.
PVWW’s rates were established almost four years ago; the Corporation Commission’s Public Utility Division approved them in late November 2017. Expenses have increased since then, the system manager/operator noted.
For example, the cost of water that Pecan Valley Waterworks buys from the City of Lawton has increased. Lawton’s City Council voted in June 2020 to raise their municipal water rate by 1.7%; that occurred four months after PVWW filed its application for a rate hike.
PVWW purchased 77,299,000 gallons of water from the City of Lawton in Calendar Year 2020, records reflect