The third year of a three-year rate adjustment went into effect for BWL electric, water and steam customers January 1. 

Residential rates for both electric and water customers increased by an average of 5 percent under the adjustments, which were approved in 2000 and which took effect January 1. For the average residential electric customer consuming 575 kilowatt-hours (KWH) of electricity per month, it means an increase of $1.99 in their monthly bill. The average water customer using  just over 5,000 gallons per month will see an increase of about  80 cents.

 Rates for steam customers increased 3 percent effective January 1.

The BWL’s 2002 annual report is completed and ready for your review.

We invite our customers, employees and bond-holders to read this document, which summarizes our financial status and highlights some of the programs, plans and accomplishments that serve you. The report includes statistical and narrative information about the BWL, as well as our audited financial statements for the 2002 fiscal year.

You can view our annual report in one of two ways. View it online here or call our Public Information number (702-6730) during business hours, and we’ll send you one.

Every once in a while we get a call from a customer concerned about the presence of lead in drinking water.

If lead enters our bodies at certain levels it can slow the physical and mental development of children and cause high blood pressure in adults.  

There’s no detectable lead in the BWL’s water supply when it leaves our conditioning plants. If it does show up in your tap water, it gets there in one of the following ways:

= From your indoor plumbing if you have lead pipes.

= From your plumbing if you have copper pipes with lead solder. (Homes built within the last 14 years have solder with lower lead levels.)

= From your plumbing if you have brass fixtures.

= From the service line connecting the water main to the house, if the service line is made of lead. There are currently about 13,000 service lines on our system that contain some lead. These are gradually being replaced.

 The BWL’s water conditioning process provides some protection against lead dissolving into drinking water. Over the last few years we’ve added additional treatment that provides coating protection on the inside of service lines and interior plumbing.

Even more important, there are some simple and inexpensive practices customers can use to minimize exposure, and they’re probably things you would do anyway:

= Hot water dissolves lead more quickly than cold water. Use only the cold water faucet for drinking or for use in coffee, cooking or preparing baby formula.

= Run the water until it’s cold before each use, especially if the water has been sitting in the pipes for six hours or so. This ensures the water you’re using is fresh, and it will cost you less than a penny a day.

Additional information about lead in drinking water is available from EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.  You can also call the BWL’s Water Quality Administrator, Bill Maier, at 702-6813.

With the cold and flu season in full swing, here’s a useful health tip from the Capital Area Health Alliance. They remind us that misusing antibiotics not only drives up the cost of health care, but can also be damaging to our health. Here’s the deal.

Bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics that used to be foolproof. Germs that cause common illnesses, like pneumonia, ear infections and tuberculosis, are now resistant to many antibiotics. If you have an infection caused by a drug-resistant germ, your doctor may have nothing to use to fight the infection--no drugs that will work. That’s serious.

Most antibiotic resistance comes from one of two situations:

= In the first, someone doesn’t take a prescribed antibiotic the right way, usually skipping the last few days of medicine. The antibiotic has killed off most of the germs and the patient shows improvement. But the tougher bacteria aren’t killed off until the last days of the prescribed treatment, and so they live on, and then multiply. The germs actually become stronger and more able to resist that antibiotic.

= The second problem develops from taking antibiotics when you don’t need them. When you’re sick, your illness may be caused by bacteria or viruses. Illnesses caused by bacteria, like strep throat, can be treated with antibiotics. But illnesses caused by viruses, like colds or the flu, won’t be helped by antibiotics, and taking them simply builds antibiotic resistance.

It’s important to use antibiotics only when they’re needed.  Talk to your doctor or pharmacist about the right medicines for your illness.