<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/aef054b4-676d-41b6-976a-9a7d78bb1b56/3FCC289A-DD29-40A5-ABFB-906F7CF3BD9A/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.nenews.com.au/Stories/chStory05n.htm" href="http://www.nenews.com.au/Stories/chStory05n.htm" style="font-size: 11px;">www.nenews.com.au</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nenews.com.au/Stories/chStory05n.htm"><P>A PROPOSAL to raise water bills by as much as 50 per cent has failed to raise the ire of North East residents.</p> <P>A public meeting in Wodonga on Monday to explain the hikes drew only one attendee.</p> <P>Representatives from the Essential Services Commission explained how average household prices are set to increase from $640 a year to $964 a year by 2012-13.</p> <P>The increase is primarily aimed at meeting operational costs and raising funds for North East Water capital investment of $103 million over the next five years.</p> <P>The works will include an $8 million off stream water storage at Bright, $6 million for a Beechworth waste water treatment plant upgrade and new administration offices in Wodonga.</p> <P>Customers will also have greater ability to reduce their bills under the NEW plan, with fixed service charges to be cut to 40 per cent of a bill and water usage to make up 60 per cent, reversing the current emphasis with 60 per cent coming from fixed charges and water usage accounting for 40 per cent.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/3FCC289A-DD29-40A5-ABFB-906F7CF3BD9A/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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