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13.12.105   Payment extensions.
   Payment extensions will be allowed twice per calendar year (January 1 through December 31).
   A.   The individual who is responsible for the account must make the payment extension request no later than the 25th day of each month in order to avoid service interruption.
   B.   The individual will be granted an additional thirty (30) days to pay the account balance in full.
   C.   The individual will still incur the 10% late fee.
   D.   Failure to pay the unpaid balance after the extension and any new or current charges will cause service disconnection. In order to restore service, the entire balance due must be paid in full and a fifty-dollar ($50.00) penalty will be added to the bill.
(Ord. 582 (part), 2020; Ord. 553, 2017)
13.12.110   Collection date—Late fee.
   All bills shall be due and payable on the first day of each month for the previous month's service. If such bills are not paid on or before the tenth day of the month, a late fee of ten percent of the amount of the bill shall be added.
(Ord. 553, 2017: prior code § 4-3-10)
13.12.111   Tampering with public utilities.
   A.   It shall be unlawful for any person to connect or attach or cause to be connected or attached, any kind of pipe, wire or other contrivance to any pipe, fire hydrant, line, wire or other conductor or appurtenance thereto, carrying gas, water, electricity, television signals, telephone signals or other conveyances provided by or belonging to a public utility (whether publicly or privately owned) in such a manner as to enable such person or other persons to receive, consume or use gas, water, electricity, television signals, telephone signals or other utility service without the same passing through a meter, without obtaining the proper permit, without paying the required fee or in any other manner so as to evade payment for such public utility service.
   B.   It also shall be unlawful for any person to damage, tamper with or destroy any pipe, line, wire, meter or any other part of any public utility, including cable television, water, gas, electricity and telephone and telegraph systems.
   C.   If any meter, pipe, line, wire, fixture or other installation or appurtenance thereto provided by a public utility primarily for the purpose of serving a particular account is found to have been tampered with or altered in violation of Subsection A of this section, the person or other customer whose name appears on the records of the public utility affected as the person or firm responsible for payment of such account shall be held prima facie responsible for such violation. In addition to a potential criminal charge for tampering with utilities, consumers and/or property owners shall be billed the actual cost for any repairs and/or replacement of damaged equipment and/or appurtenances and the costs thereof and all other charges, fees, penalties, interest, etc., owned on the account must be paid, in full, prior to any utility services being restored to any property. All delinquent charges assessed to a property must be paid in full prior to reinstatement of any utilities services to a delinquent property.
   D.   Any act which, if uncorrected, would result in any utility customer being billed or charged by such utility for a lesser amount of utility service than actually furnished shall be deemed in violation of Subsection A hereof.
   E.   Conviction for violation of this section shall not affect the offenders civil liability for damages done to facilities or responsibility to pay for gas, water, electricity, television signals, telephone signals or other utility service used but not paid for.
   F.   Anyone convicted of a violation of this section 13.12.111 shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars or imprisoned for not more than ninety (90) days, or both.
(Ord. 553, 2017: Ord. 445 (part), 2003)
Article III.
Sewer Rates
13.12.120   Definitions.
   Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the meaning of terms used in this article shall be as follows:
   "BOD" (denoting biochemical oxygen demand) means the quantity of oxygen utilized in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter under standard laboratory procedure for five days at twenty degrees Celsius expressed in milligrams per liter.
   "Capital charge" means that portion of the total waste water service charge which is levied for local capital costs, local investment in plant facilities and other local costs excluding operation, maintenance and replacement costs.
   "City" means the city of Lovington.
   "Commercial customers" means those customers which have three or more living units served by a single water meter, or which have one or more businesses served by a single water meter.
   "Industrial customer" means any nongovernmental, nonresidential user of a publicly owned treatment works which discharges more than the equivalent of twenty-five thousand gallons per day of sanitary waste and which is identified in the Standard Industrial Classification Manual under divisions A, B, D, E, I. Any nongovernmental user which discharges wastewater which contains toxic pollutants, poisonous solids, liquids or gases in sufficient quantities to contaminate the sludge, injure or interfere with the treatment system process, or which constitutes a hazard to humans or animals, creates a public nuisance, creates a hazard or has an adverse effect on the receiving waters.
   "Infiltration/inflow" means the total quantity of water other than wastewater from both infiltration and inflow without distinguishing the source from defective pipes, pipe joints, connections, manholes, roof leaders, cellar drains, yard drains, area drains, foundation drains, drains from springs and swampy area, cross connections, catch basins, cooling towers, stormwaters, surface runoffs, street wash waters, or drainage.
   "Living unit" means a residential unit providing complete, independent, living facilities for one family, including permanent provisions for living, sleeping, cooking, eating and sanitation.
   "Municipality" means (1) a city, town, borough, county, parish, district, association or other public body (including an intermunicipal agency of two or more of the foregoing entities) created under state law having jurisdiction over disposal of sewage, industrial waste, or other waste; (2) a special district such as water, sewer, sanitary, utility, drainage or similar entity whose principal responsibility is the treatment, transport, or disposal of liquid waste of the general public in a particular geographic area.
   "Normal sewage" means sewage which, when analyzed, shows by weight a daily average of not more than two hundred milligrams per liter of BOD and not more than two hundred milligrams per liter of TSS, and which is otherwise acceptable into the city's sanitary sewerage system.
   "Residential customers" means those customers which have no more than two living units served by a single water meter.
   "Surcharge" means a charge added to the normal user charge when the BOD, TSS, or
other pollutant concentration from a user exceeds the range of concentration of these pollutants in normal domestic sewage.
   "Suspended solids" means solids that either float on the surface of, or are in suspension in water, sewage, or other liquids, and which are removable by laboratory filtering.
   "User charge" means that portion of the total wastewater service charge which is levied in a proportional and adequate manner for the cost of operation, maintenance and replacement of the wastewater treatment and collection system.
   "Wastewater treatment system" means (1) the transport of wastewaters from individual homes or buildings to a plant or facility where treatment of the wastewater is accomplished; (2) to remove pollutants, dispose, recycle, or reuse the treated wastewaters and residues which result from the treatment process, and can include one or more connected or integrated treatment plants. (Ord. 311 § 1, 1982)
13.12.130   Applicability of article.
   This article shall take precedence over any terms or conditions of agreements or contracts between the city and the users, including, commercial, industrial, special districts, other municipalities, or federal agencies or installations which are inconsistent with this article. (Ord. 311 § 2, 1982)
13.12.140   Determination of use charges.
   The city will apply charges for operation and maintenance pertaining to extraneous flows (i.e., infiltration/inflow) in the same manner that it distributes the cost of operation and maintenance among users or user classes for their actual use. (Ord. 311 § 3, 1982)
13.12.150   Disposition of revenues.
   The city will apply excess revenues collected from a class of users to the costs of operation and maintenance attributable to that class for the next year and adjust the rate accordingly. (Ord. 311 § 4, 1982)
13.12.160   Use charge schedule.
   A.   There is levied on all persons, firms, corporations, organizations, political units and political subdivisions and all other entities using the wastewater collection and treatment system of the city, a schedule of charges as provided in this section.
   B.   Users connected to and served by the sewer system of the city shall be classified as either domestic, industrial or commercial.
   C.   The following schedule of charges, which include a portion designated as the user charge, used for payment of costs of operation and maintenance, and replacement, of the wastewater collection and treatment system, shall be amended as follows:
   D.   The following rates are effective July 1, 2017.
   Residential use rates:
 
Usage
7/1/2017
7/1/2018
1st 3,000 gallons (monthly minimum)
$13.37
$15.26
Over 3,000 gallons (for each 1,000 gallons or part thereof)
$0.91
$1.04
 
   Commercial use rates:
 
Usage
7/1/2017
7/1/2018
1st 5,000 gallons (monthly minimum)
$20.65
$23.57
Over 5,000 gallons (for each 1,000 gallons or part thereof)
$0.91
$1.04
 
   Beginning July 1, 2019, a 2% cost for service increase shall be effective automatically each July 1st unless rescinded by the Lovington City Commission sixty (60) calendar days prior.
(Ord. 553, 2017: Ord. 484, 2007: Ord. 472, 2006: Ord. 442 (part), 2002; Ord. 427 (part), 2000; Ord. 421, 1999; Ord. 408 (part), 1997; Ord. 311 §§ 5—10, 1982)
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