The capacity of the Bowling Green Municipal Utilities water treatment plant is growing, and the bills of many consumers who get their water from that plant will soon follow suit.

Warren County Water District customers will see increases in their monthly water and wastewater bills in July as a response to cost increases associated with the water treatment upgrade and the water district’s need to repair some of its aging infrastructure.

A company fact sheet said WCWD residential water customers will see an average increase of $1.70 on their monthly bills starting July 1. The average residential bill will climb from $21.64 to $23.34, and the average commercial bill will jump from $169.21 to $187.71 a month.

Wastewater residential customers will see an average hike of $1.93 per month, jumping from $19.96 to $21.89. Commercial customers will see a hike from $379.67 per month to $455.94.

This is the first of four annual rate increases stemming from about $60 million being spent on BGMU’s water treatment upgrade, improvements to water service in the southern end of the county and WCWD repairs to aging sewer lines.

“We’re trying to spread the impact of this over four years,” WCWD General Manager John Dix said. “We believe this is a one-time fix that will last several decades.”

While WCWD is making this rate adjustment and three others that Dix describes as “smaller” hikes over the next three years, BGMU customers shouldn’t see any immediate changes in their bills.

“We have a little bit more flexibility in how we implement projects,” BGMU General Manager Mark Iverson said. “As we’ve added water treatment capacity, we’ve built up our rates over time. Our rates have had those projects baked into them.”

The big project is a $47 million upgrade to the water treatment plant near Chestnut Street and U.S. 31-W By-Pass that will take the plant’s capacity from 30 million to 45 million gallons per day. BGMU will also spend an estimated $9 million to improve how water is moved from the southern part of the county to the treatment plant.

“We want to make sure we have the infrastructure in place to serve a growing community,” Iverson said.

WCWD, which maintains more than 1,200 miles of pipeline and has 29,000 water customers and 7,500 wastewater customers, is making upgrades of its own that will add to the total infrastructure investment.

“We put in sewer pipe in the Louisville Road and Plum Springs Road areas in 1972,” Dix said. “We’re having to repair and replace some of that.”

That project carries a cost of about $3 million.

Dix said all the improvements should “easily meet our growth needs through the year 2040.”

Dix said that, even with the rate hike, WCWD will still have lower rates than many similar-sized utilities in Kentucky.

According to the company fact sheet, WCWD’s water rate after the increase will be higher than Owensboro Municipal Utilities but lower than BGMU and utilities in Paducah, Hopkinsville, Hardin County and Lexington.

“Warren Water recognizes that any increase can be difficult for our residential and business customers.” Dix said. “However, these rate adjustments will provide the infrastructure needed to serve the strong growth our region is experiencing both now and for the future.”

Dix noted the rate increases are being spread over four years to lessen the one-time cost.

“The staff at BGMU worked with us to achieve our goal of reducing the impact on our customers by adopting a four-year rate-setting strategy to lessen the immediate cost impact,” he said. “It is important to note that the three future rate increases will be lower than the initial increase.”