LETTER: Las Vegas water fee numbers don’t add up

Something doesn’t quite add up.

In your Tuesday article concerning the Las Vegas Valley Water District’s new excessive use charge, the first paragraph states that “one out of six homes” (16.7 percent) “has been hit.” However district officials say that the fee was targeted to affect only the top 10 percent of customers. In actuality, that means that 67 percent percent more customers have had to pay this fee.

The article also mentions that among the original 10 percent of customers, “there has been a 20 percent drop in water use.” But collections of the charge (which is based solely on consumption) decreased only 3 percent from May to June ($3.2 million to $3.1 million). If additional reduction in usage occurred, it must have happened for other reasons and outside the realm of the new fee. Our mild spring and mild early summer leap to mind. Now that excessive heat has hit the valley, it will be interesting to see how much revenue this fee generates in July and August.

I’ve always been taught to “look at what someone does, not what they say.” Data in the Tuesday article is in direct opposition to the statements made by the district’s PR department. When it comes to areas affecting my wallet, I believe the details and not the words.