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Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry has passed away after a brief battle with cancer.

Council Approves Water Rate Hike For Pipe Fixes

Rebecca Green/WBOI News

Fort Wayne City Council approved a City Utilities proposal seeking a rate hike in an effort to repair the city’s aging water infrastructure Tuesday night.

The annual 5.8 percent increase to the city’s water rate would bring revenue in for a five-year overhaul of 70 miles of Fort Wayne’s aging water pipes. City Utilities attributes roughly 150 main breaks in the first five months of 2018 to poor quality of the pipes.

But Council’s approval does not mean the increase goes into effect. The measure heads to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, which has up to 300 days to respond. There is a chance the increase gets approved, but at a lower rate than the 5.8 percent requested. City Utilities director Kumar Menon says it’s happened before, and they can make it work.

“If that happens, then we’d have to made changes to see which projects get delayed, which projects get accelerated,” said Menon. “So our challenge is always keeping up with deteriorating infrastructure. We don’t want to play that game, we have to stay ahead of this.”

The final vote count was 7-2. If enacted, water rates will increase 5.8 percent annually for five years. For the consumer using 4,000 gallons monthly, the increase could look like this:

  • $1.34 a month increase in 2019
  • $1.43 a month increase in 2020
  • $1.53 a month increase in 2021
  • $1.54 a month increase in 2022
  • $1.67 a month increase in 2023
Zach joined 89.1 WBOI as a reporter and local host for All Things Considered, and hosted Morning Edition for the past few years. In 2022, he was promoted to Content Director.