Sky's the limit for Brookside water bill
By Joe Piasecki 06/05/2008
Rising water rates could push the bill for irrigating the Brookside Golf Club grounds to nearly $1 million by next year, a situation that prompted Pasadena City Council members to raise weekend greens fees on Monday for the first time in two years.
Meanwhile, as the city faces potential water shortages and possible consumer rate hikes as high as 15 percent, a plan to pipe recycled water into the golf course has remained underfunded and unrealized for more than a decade.
According to a report by the Rose Bowl Operating Co., which maintains the golf course through a contract with the American Golf Corp., Pasadena contracted with the city of Glendale in 1993 to purchase recycled water from the Los Angeles/Glendale Water Reclamation Plant. Several recreational areas, including Glendale’s Scholl Canyon Golf Course, currently use this water.
Since that time, explained Mayor Bill Bogaard, Brookside and other facilities have been unable to access the water because the pipeline constructed to bring it into Pasadena was never completed past city boundaries. To do so would cost several million dollars, he said.
Bogaard, who for years has sought state and federal funding for the project, estimates the cost of completing the pipeline to be as much as $5 million or more. He expects the council’s newly reconstituted Utility Advisory Committee and the RBOC to discuss the issue in the near future.
On July 1, weekend greens fees for residents will go up by $2 to $40, and nonresidents will pay $55, an increase of $5.
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