Docket Number	Docket Name	Company
UW 202	SEAVEY LOOP REQUEST FOR A GENERAL RATE REVISION	SEAVEY LOOP WATER HOLDINGS, LLC

Comment Number	Created Date	Email Received Date	Company Name	Comment Type	Source Type	First Name	Last Name	Email	Nearest City	Comment
UW 202-1	2/19/2025 7:12:00 PM		SEAVEY LOOP WATER HOLDINGS, LLC	General Comment	Web	Pam	McClelland		EUGENE	We depend on the PUC to help our small rural subdivision, keep a safe water and affordable price .The PUC has stepped up in the past when we were getting unsafe and insufficient service. We are a subdivision that is over 40% retired seniors. We have no options to disconnect and move service elsewhere. Lack of water would lower the value of our homes. Seavey Loop Water has not engaged with our small group of homeowners to clearly justify the needs of the well system. The company has been absorbed into a larger unit of which this community does not get any advantage. No consideration of our small group is given, to whether we have the capacity to absorb these cost. Again over 40% of these homes are senior and our social security only increased 3%. A 33.8% increase is extreme. Is it bad management that a 113.8% increase is projected? Can the PUC tell us what 113.8% is because the Seavey Loop Water company has failed to adequately explain to us what their problem is. Seavey Loop Water is failing in their “expertise in the best interest of the community served and Seavey Loop’s customer” Their expertise not in my best interest today..
UW 202-2	2/19/2025 7:54:10 PM		SEAVEY LOOP WATER HOLDINGS, LLC	General Comment	Web	Juliana	Ford		EUGENE	Hello. I spoke on the zoom call and wanted to put my comments in writing. I received the package that was submitted to the PUB on page 7 they show $30,564 I added it up and came up with $28,429 a difference of $2,153. Also on page 11 they state there will be no capital improvements, additions or extension so I feel there is no need to increase our monthly amount. I figure this is a 38% increase going from $88.02 to $121.37. I feel this is too much. My street on EL Centro we have retired people a household of 1 to 2 people. I am a household of one and it outlandish to be paying that amount. I am sure the increase has to do with the change in ownership going to NW Natural Water. I honestly feel that the $88.02 is too much way above what EWEB OR SUB customers are paying. I would request the amount be dropped back to $42.00 a month. If you approve this increase when will it stop.
UW 202-3	2/19/2025 9:47:53 PM		SEAVEY LOOP WATER HOLDINGS, LLC	Oppose Docket	Web	Yeager	St John		EUGENE	I oppose Seavey Loop Water Company's (referred to from here on as Puttman Infrastructure, who they really are) request for a rate revision and vehemently oppose any kind of metering service that will further increase our costs. I believe the small community that our well services is already paying more than the average and is lining the pockets of Puttman Infrastructure. If you compare the cost that we pay against EWEB customers or even other local small neighborhoods on wells, we are wildly overpaying for the service we receive. Puttman has acquired 4 water utilities across Oregon and from what my research has shown, every community they've come into is relatively small and they have increased the cost substantially to cover the cost of "improvements." Their request to further increase our rates and line their pockets should be seen as a strong-arm move against the residents of Seavey Loop - we have no other choice than to get our water supply from our community well. We did not ask for them to manage our well or have any say in the "improvements" they have made. The work that has been done in our community has been lackluster and of poor quality, but at high cost. Instead we are at the whim of Puttman Infrastructure's desire to increase profits year after year with little to no recourse. I feel the PUC let us down in our last hearing and put the needs of the company ahead of the needs of the public having fair and reasonable rates - we do not have lawyers on our side or well versed speakers. We're a small group of retirees, or small families. There is no reason we should have to pay for Puttman Infrastructure's decision to purchase our well - they should have performed analysis on the site before purchasing and known what "improvements" or maintenance was required before taking over and factored that into the cost of doing business. Instead it seems they purchased our well and then immediately found ways to overinflated their capital improvements in order to justify a higher price tag for the water that comes freely from the water table below us. I have personally had multiple experiences with water supply not being up to par since Puttman took over. I have had my water shut off at random times with little to no notice, or have had issues with water pressure fluctuations that I verified with several other neighbors who also experienced this. Puttman's customer service is lack-luster and I get the feeling that they see us as a nuisance when we call to ask them to do their job or inquire about the service they provide. Additionally, it's ridiculous that our well is managed by a company in Portland - they don't seem to have the resources or ability to properly manage our well from 100 miles or 2 hours away. When an ice storm came through last year, the entire neighborhood lost water due to losing power. While EPUD was out repairing lines and getting us power restored, I never heard from Puttman as to whether they were going to get around to making sure our water was ok. Not once did I hear from them concerned with the fact that we had lost water; meanwhile EPUD, NW Natural and my other utilities sure made sure to keep us in the loop and get service reconnected as fast as possible. I have heard no logical, reasonable or convincing argument for metering our lines. This seems like another cash-grab where Puttman can increase our base rate and then tack on extra charges to further increase their profits. Not once in the history of living in this community have I seen an issue with us running out of water or over-taxing the well. Nobody on the well farms or abuses their water usage - adding meters is just a method to further increase "capital improvements" and rake us over the coals for more money. I was an intervener on the last hearing and I was able to see some of their expenses that they used to justify their increase in charges - some of these, like phone and internet connections, landscaping, and fencing make me question whether Puttman knows how to run an efficient business, or if they just know how to make things look expensive. Were there no other reasonable bids for any of these jobs? Why does Puttman need to charge Seavey Loop customers for phone and internet service for our well - and if it's for their business, isn't that cost split across their 24 other utilities that they manage? Ultimately I don't have good faith that Puttman is the right candidate for maintaining our well - they have 24 other utilities that they manage across Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada and seem more interested in growing their net worth rather than providing reliable, safe and fairly priced service to small communities. I think the PUC needs to step up and help defend our community from being bled dry by corporate greed.
UW 202-4	2/21/2025 12:33:07 AM	2/19/2025 7:06:15 PM		General Comment	Email			carriemichellerose@gmail.com		My name is Carrie Rose, and I am a customer of the Seavey Loop Water Company and the next door neighbor of their well. This is the written comment that I’m submitting in addition to the verbal statement that I made at the Public Comment Hearing. The Seavey Loop Water Company is claiming that they need $53,890 in annual revenues for a well with 37 customers. I have looked through their documentation they submitted to support this claim, and I am very concerned by one major issue: most of the invoices are from Puttman Infrastructure. With Thomas Puttman as president of both the Seavey Loop Water Company and Puttman Infrastructure, this appears to be basically just someone paying himself. The expenses could still be legitimate, but it certainly calls for a higher level of scrutiny to determine what exactly Puttman Infrastructure is billing for. Unfortunately, Puttman Infrastructure’s invoices give almost no information much of the time. One invoice dated January 1, 2023 for $9,983.83 is for “Project: Development Services.” It breaks this amount down into three different “Development Fees.” For example, they charged $5,605 for a “Development Fee” for “SLWC Storage.” What is a development fee for storage? This sounds like it might not be a necessary or reasonable expense for delivering water to customers. If this is an expense related to the development of Thomas Puttman’s businesses, Seavey Loop customers should not be paying it. Questionable expenses from outside companies include things like graphic design, 11x17 color images from a print company, installation of an irrigation system, and almost $10,000 for something described as “Professional Services: Kickstarter Implementation.” These might be legitimate expenses for Thomas Puttman to grow the value of his investments, but are they needed for providing water to customers? I have a lot of questions about the nature of many of these expenses, but there is one I’m more familiar with that is related to me, and I would like to tell the story of this expense. I live next door to the well. When I moved into my property in 2010, there was a fence between our properties in the side yard area, with no fence in the front yard. The fence in the side yard was not on the property line, but was a few feet inside the well’s property. In 2023, the Seavey Loop Water Company hired someone to build a fence in their front yard, but the fence was built in the wrong location, and it was put on my property without anyone consulting me. This interfered with my access to my backyard, and I reached out to the Seavey Loop Water Company to discuss removal of the fence. They told me that the fence company had been required to get my approval and thus had been the ones in error, so they would move the fence for free. I was happy with that solution, but when the Water Company emailed me with their plans for moving the fence, they also included plans to move the pre-existing fence in the side yard, pointing out that this would limit my use of my yard. This seemed like retaliation to me, since it would be wasteful to spend money moving a fence a few feet when the current location wasn’t causing any problems. We discussed the issue more and ultimately came up with a resolution that seemed satisfactory. The Water Company had their lawyer draft a statement saying that, although the fence was not exactly on the property line, they retained their rights to the entire property, and they were giving me the right to use the side yard on my side of the fence. (The statement also said that I had mistakenly constructed a fence on their property, which I pointed out was inaccurate.) The Seavey Loop Water Company then proceeded to move the front yard fence to their property, remove the side yard fence, and construct another side yard fence in the exact same location! I don’t think that any of these expenses should be borne by the customers. The failure to consult me before building a fence on my property was negligence, and any costs associated with that should be paid by the negligent party. The decision to file a legal document proactively protecting property rights to a sliver of land that the well currently isn’t using might be a reasonable business decision for Thomas Puttman, but only to protect his land holdings. It doesn’t serve any purpose in providing water to the customers. And the decision to remove a perfectly good fence and build another fence in the exact same location baffles me and seems financially imprudent. Perhaps they wanted all their fences to match, but if so, that’s an aesthetic issue that customers shouldn’t pay for. I have been trying to wade through hundreds of pages of documents to figure out where they have included the costs for these particular expenses so that I can suggest that they be removed from the rate case. It’s difficult because I don’t have bookkeeping expertise, and I’m hoping that the experie
UW 202-5	2/23/2025 9:46:41 AM		SEAVEY LOOP WATER HOLDINGS, LLC	Oppose Docket	Web	Linda	Cartwright		EUGENE	I am vehemently opposed to a rate hike. Compared to our surrounding areas our monthly rate is way too high at $88.02. Personally I am retired with only a Soc Sec income which is not nearly enough to afford this proposed hike. This seems to me the equivalent to corporate greed, price gouging, what have you... PLEASE do not do this rate hike to our small community of working class that cannot afford it!!