KEARNEYSVILLE, W.Va. — An official with West Virginia American Water Company is explaining recent rate increases for new customers in the eastern panhandle.

The company officially took over Jefferson Utilities last year and now has water customers in Jefferson, Berkeley and Morgan counties.

Rates for customers in Jefferson County were raised by 44% after the company purchased the former utility and then another 8% this past March following a decision by the state Public Service Commission.

WVAW Director of Development Brooks Crislip said he realizes no one likes rate increases but this is about investment. In the company’s last rate case it detailed $250 million in infrastructure improvements.

“For us, we’ve already spent that money. We go to the PSC and say we’ve already spent this and we need to recover this so we can continue to make those investments,” Crislip said last week during an appearance on Panhandle Live on WEPM Radio in Martinsburg.

The utility has spent more than $750 million on water and sewer projects in West Virginia over the past decade, Crislip said.

WVAW is a private utility, not one operated by a local government, and Crislip said that also makes a difference.

“We’re a private utility so we pay taxes, a public utility doesn’t,” Crislip said. “We’re also not eligible to receive some of the funding mechanisms a public utility does and we invest in a much higher rate than a public utility does.”

When West Virginia American Water acquired Jefferson Utilities last October the company included a 44% service rate increase for about 4,000 customers in Jefferson County. A base rate increase of 8% was approved earlier this year for all WVAW customers.

This increase included an average of $8 per month for residential water customers and an average of $12 per month for wastewater customers.