Rocky road for Sheridan customers

We wish we could say that the sad story of the Sheridan Acres Water System was concluded earlier this month with rate hikes that should help cover improvements to the system, but we can't.

The history of the water system that supplies residents in one of Carson Valley's oldest communities (Sheridan was a contemporary of Genoa) has been a rocky one.

Begun as a private water system, Sheridan was in trouble with the Public Utility Commission in the early 1990s.

It took more than a decade after the county was asked to take over the water system before it finally did so.

Those issues were inherited, but the county didn't help matters when it took over administrative duties that should have been paid for by the ratepayers.

Add to that the Job's Peak Water System, which should have come to the county in pristine condition, but requires treatment for too much carbon dioxide, and you have a formula for disaster.

We believe that the cost of operating both water systems should be borne by those who use them.

But we know given the real costs that might be impossible to realize without consolidating the county's other water systems and spreading costs over all of their systems.

The biggest problem is that the county is not a large enough water purveyor to spread those costs out without significant rate increases.

That shoe will drop in the next year. Here's hoping it actually moves the county forward in fixing the problem for good.