LAS VEGAS -- Utilities Inc. of Central Nevada is expecting to file another rate hike request in three years, to cover the cost of improvements requested by Nye County, attorney Shawn Elicegui told the Public Utilities Commission Friday.

The PUC is scheduled to consider a request for an existing rate hike Wednesday. PUC Hearing Examiner Nancy Wenzel took testimony from a handful of Pahrump residents who were mistakenly informed by mail it was a consumer session on the request.

Utilities Inc., the largest private utility company in Pahrump, providing water and sewer service to 4,186 water accounts, requested an increase in the monthly sewer base rate for most residential accounts from $23.60 to $44.13 in an application filed last December.

Water rates would increase to 99 cents per 1,000 gallons after 8,000 gallons of usage per month, $1.67 for each 1,000 gallons after that and $2.54 per 1,000 gallons after 30,000 gallons. The utility currently charges 72 cents per 1,000 gallons in the winter and 82 cents in the summer.

The increase in water rates would amount to a hike in the average residential bill from $20.68 to $27.84 per month. The average residential customer uses 14,000 gallons per month.

Nye County agreed to a settlement with Utilities Inc. in which the utility would eliminate dead-end lines on six Pahrump streets, put a cover over the sewer equalization ponds to resolve the odor problem at Willow Creek golf course, provide a reasonable free allowance on extending water and sewer lines to new customers and hold quarterly meetings with the county to resolve customer complaints.

The improvements stipulated with Nye County were projects Utilities Inc. planned to build anyway, but Elicegui said, "It slightly accelerates the time line."

Charles Bolle, PUC policy audits manager, said there was no deal the improvements requested by the county would be paid by shareholders in the company instead of ratepayers. Extending the dead end lines is estimated to cost $535,000, while covering the equalization basins at the Willow Creek sewer plant would cost another $250,000.

PUC Water Engineer Mark Clarkson said the looping of the water and sewer lines was in the Utilities Inc. master plan for the next five-to- eight-year period.

"We tried to identify rate impact," Clarkson said. The projects were steps that needed to be taken but he said there was a concern about undertaking them all at once resulting in "rate shock."

The dead-end lines result in inadequate water pressure and a drop-off in chlorine through the system, Clarkson said.

"Equalization basins do tend to put off odors at different periods of time," Clarkson said. "During some hot days and inversion layers you do get an odor hanging in there ... It is a good idea to have these covered."

Elicegui said Senate Bill 86, passed by the Nevada Legislature, prohibits the utility from asking for a rate increase until at least three years after the last one. The next rate application will be filed no later than 2010, possibly in 2009, he said.

The line extension policy granting a free allowance to new developments, was mentioned but there were no specifics offered. Elicegui said Utilities Inc. could grant a specific dollar amount or linear footage free of charge.

"This provision is very near and dear to staff's heart, particularly with the service territory. It's a very large, service territory," said PUC legal counsel Alaina Burtenshaw. "If you're 1,000 feet from the nearest line you pay the entire freight to get that line to yourself which basically totally hampers the ability of people to build on their lots."

A few existing customers complained about being burdened with the rate increase. David Stevens said the water and sewer increase isn't helping an already difficult situation for homeowners, some of whom are losing their homes to foreclosure.

"Property owners should have to pay for their own infrastructure. We had to when I was developing property," Stevens said.

Rich Patino, a Pahrump Realtor, said the PUC was creating infrastructure for developers. He said his water bill will be close to $100 per month, and he lives conservatively with his wife in a 1,600-square-foot home.

"We're working to create growth and in the process of creating growth we're creating fees that are going to be so exorbitant that nobody's going to even want to look at coming to Pahrump.," Patino said.

"Personally I'm a realtor, starving to death. There's no real estate market per se and there's development going on like crazy," Patino said. "There's more than available housing out there. We have more than 1,000 houses available and that's just in the MLS (multiple listing service) system, that doesn't include new homes.

"So there's no new need for infrastructure. It's going to take more than what the government says, eight months, to sell existing properties. We're looking at probably three or four years before that amount of property gets sold out and absorbed into the market place," he said.

Back in 2004, when the real estate market in Pahrump began to boom, Patino said there were only 150 houses available on the market. Now, Patino said he recently counted 23 for sale signs in less than a half-mile on Mount Charleston Drive.

Joseph McKendrick said the water bill on his fourplex in Pahrump will increase from $157 per month to $346 per month with the new rates.

"Also, I am upset Nye County wasn't here to represent its constituents, especially if they would want to build a bridge between UICN and Nye County residents. There should be some type of representation there," Frank Barkanyi said. He felt he was being discriminated against being compared to other Pahrump residents who don't have to abide by the utility's rules and regulations, like being charged higher rates after the first 8,000 gallons per month.

Jan Brabham, who is developing a project in Pahrump, complained of the rude attitude when she dealt with Utilities Inc. last spring. Wenzel, the hearing examiner, urged Brabham to speak with Paul Burris, regional vice-president of operations for Utilities Inc., sitting in the hearing room, who has lived in Pahrump the past two years.

"He's made a lot of changes in Spring Creek, with another company that Utilities Inc. owns up north and has really done a good job communicating with the customers and the homeowner's association," Wenzel said.