Many of Villa Rica’s residents are going to be in for a rude awakening when they receive their July water bills this week.

City officials said that after outdoor watering restrictions were relaxed last month, many residents “went wild” irrigating their lawns, washing their cars and sometimes wasting water because it had been the first time they were able to do so in several years. But while the stringent restrictions were in place, the city, as mandated by the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, implemented new conservation water rates that increased the cost per 1,000 gallons of water used at varying thresholds, as opposed to the old inverted system that dropped the price of water for more use.

“Part of getting our permit to build the new West Wastewater Treatment Plant was to continue to come in compliance with all of the requirements the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District has and one of their requirements is you have to have a conservation water rate system that encourages people not to use so much water whether there is a drought or not,” City Manager Larry Wood said. “You have a finite amount of water and even though we’re in pretty good shape statewide now the state wants to continue to grow.”

The guidelines for the tiered conservation rates were established by the water planning district, which based the levels on a formula calculated by using the average water usage in the city during the four winter months and adding about 20 percent. The city’s average water customer uses slightly more than 4,000 gallons of water per month, so the initial mark was set at 5,000 gallons. Usage up to that point costs a customer $3.25 per 1,000 gallons, plus a small one-time availability fee. From 5,000 gallons to 8,500 gallons, customers pay $4.07 per 1,000 gallons and anything over 8,500 gallons costs customers $6.51 per 1,000 gallons.

Depending on their level of usage, the city’s 1,000 water customers living outside the city limits pay even higher rates of $4.88, $6.10 and $9.77, respectively, at each tier.

“Some people are going to be very surprised,” Wood said. “Those people who went wild with their watering are going to have some big bills.”

Many water customers in the Mirror Lake area will see the biggest increases in their bills based on last month’s usage. Comparing water usage from July 2008 to July 2009, the roughly 1,500 water customers in the Mirror Lake area used 2 million gallons more this year than last year. In total, the city’s 6,000 water customers used about 4 million gallons more this month.

“In the Mirror Lake area, that’s about a 35 percent increase in usage,” Wood said.

So much water is being used in the Mirror Lake area that officials report it has been difficult keeping the water tank that services that area full. However, a new water line that was to go online this week should alleviate that problem and provide more water pressure to the area by directly connecting the Mirror Lake tank to the Hickory Level tank.

Even though residents are now able to use water outside more freely, they must still follow the even/odd address system with no watering allowed on Fridays.