BUCKFIELD – Water customers here are facing the highest rates in the nation, according to Steve Levy, executive director of the Maine Rural Water Association.

Levy met recently with the Board of Selectmen about problems facing the Buckfield Village Corp. – the local water company – which proposes a 75-percent rate hike to cover costs of a filtration plant for its supply from North Pond.

The typical customer would pay $615 a year, more than double the statewide average of $300. Currently, the highest rate in the country is in southern California at $598 a year.

Town Manager Glen Holmes said that if some of the big water users in town drill wells, the rate could go as high as $800.

“If that should happen it would be a very bad spiral. The Public Utilities (Commission) said if this should happen it would be a death spiral,” Levy advised.

Levy said the water company proposes to restructure its rates to make them fair to all users. Only seven of the 179 customers have meters; the others have fixed rates.

He said officials found inequities in the way rates are charged. Some private homes use more water than they are assessed. He proposed having each homeowner be designated as one unit and apartment buildings as having more units.

The rate increase was proposed this year to cover the corporation’s $1.1 million debt. A loan was secured after the federal Safe Drinking Water Act was passed in 1986. That required surface water suppliers to install filtration plants, drill wells or get waivers for their plants. An engineer hired by the corporation advised it to build a plant.

Buckfield was given a waiver but it was lost in the mound of paperwork involved in the process, former corporation Director Bob Lipham said.

Levy said the town could put in a well, but the loan must still be paid.

The corporation is a small utility and the rate increase is the only answer, Levy said. He said bankruptcy is not an option because the corporation has the right to levy fees on homes within its district.

“The issue here is, how will the (water company) handle the debt?” Levy said.

Town officials have discussed taking over the water company and running it as a town entity.

A public hearing on the water-rate issue is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 12, at Buckfield Junior-Senior High School.

The Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 21, at PUC offices in Augusta before ruling on the rate request.