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A Bowling Green business owner will skate a fine line between safety and budget considerations by shutting off his buildings water sprinkler system in the face of skyrocketing prices, he said. Greenwood Skating Center owner Ken Merideth said he plans to deactivate the sprinkler system in his building at 506 Three Springs Road sometime this week. Merideth, a Warren County Water District customer, said he pays $300 a month $3,600 a year for water for the buildings sprinkler system. If his business was a hundred yards down the road, Merideth said, it would fall in Bowling Green Municipal Utilities district, which doesnt charge for the service. I hate to do it, Merideth said. Were being forced to turn off our sprinkler system. This is one bill that I can address. Merideth said shutting off the system will result in higher insurance rates and less protection for his business and its customers in the event of a fire but is necessary because of inflated rates. But Warren County Water District General Manager Joe Liles said the sprinklers fee is required because of the density of county consumers. Businesses are charged to avoid having residential customers absorb the costs, he said. We spread the cost of fire protection to the people that actually benefit from it, Liles said. We just ask the people who benefit from it to pay for it, rather than asking people that dont have it (and) require them to pay for the larger mains. Liles said he was unaware that Merideth intended to deactivate his sprinklers. Merideth said his building is not required to have sprinkler service, though he chose to install it around 20 years ago to protect his customers and building. Sprinkler water fees began nine years ago and have continued to rise, he said. Richard Storey, assistant chief of Bowling Green Fire Department, said Merideths business is one of few allowed to deactivate its sprinkler system. He decried the water districts fee. There is no way they can justify these charges, Storey said. Storey said he has investigated sprinkler rates in Kentucky and elsewhere and found Warren Countys to be unusually high. For example, San Diego is one of the nations driest cities but only charges about $6 a month in sprinkler fees for a 4-inch main, and Colorado-based American Water Works Association recommends a sprinkler fee of about $10 a month for a 6-inch water main, Storey said. Charges are fairly common, but theyre more in the neighborhood of zero to maybe $20 or $30 a month for the same type set up, he said. Charges in the neighborhood of $300 a month or higher are very unusual. Most factories and businesses in Warren County must have sprinkler systems, for which Warren County Water District charges from $300 to $1,200 a month, Storey said. Those businesses have no option but to pay for high-priced water that rarely if ever is used, he said. Water sprinklers can significantly decrease the spread of fire, he said. In Bowling Green this summer, three fires either were extinguished or substantially controlled when one sprinkler head was activated, he said.