A $520 Million Pipeline, 20 Percent Rate Hikes, and 35,000 Customers With No Vote

The Tennessee Local Development Authority unanimously approved Columbia's $315 million federal financing request on August 24, 2026. The county ratepayers helping pay for the project elect nobody who sets their rates.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The state cleared the financing. On Monday, August 24, 2026, the Tennessee Local Development Authority unanimously approved Columbia's request to issue $315 million in federal WIFIA debt on equal priority with a State Revolving Fund loan, a structure that saves roughly $50 million in interest over the life of the project, per the Tennessee Lookout. The money finances a $520 million water intake pipeline and treatment plant drawing on the Duck River in Southern Middle Tennessee.

The funding plan behind it, per the Lookout: water rate increases of up to 20 percent annually over five years, higher developer impact fees, and long-term low-interest federal and state loans.

The accountability question is who pays and who votes. Columbia Power and Water Systems is a city utility whose rates are approved by the Columbia City Council. It serves about 27,000 customers inside the city and sells water to systems serving roughly 35,000 more people outside it. Those outside customers, per the Lookout, already pay higher rates than city customers and will help pay for the pipeline without electing anyone who approved it.

Dustin Kittle, an agricultural and environmental attorney representing property owners along the pipeline route, put it this way, per the Lookout: county ratepayers "will be paying more for this pipeline than what people inside the city will, and the ironic part of that is the county ratepayers won't have any stake in that at all. This will be an asset that will belong to the city."

The project has cleared its local votes: the Columbia City Council approved it in January 2026 after intense debate, and the Duck River Watershed Planning Partnership approved it 12 to 2 with three abstaining, per the Lookout.

Why It Matters for Memphis

Memphis knows this governance shape. MLGW is a city-owned utility whose board answers to Memphis government while its service and its bills reach across Shelby County, a structure The 901 Report has covered directly. Columbia's version is now attached to a half-billion-dollar asset and five years of compounding rate increases, which makes it a working example of what happens when the people paying for a utility's biggest bet are not the people its board answers to. The material differences are real: MLGW's scale is far larger and its rates cover all customers under one structure. The governance question is the same.

The Transparency Gap

Who holds the authority here. Every body that approved this project answers to someone, and none of them answers to roughly 35,000 of the people who will pay for it. The Columbia City Council sets the rates and approved the project in January. The Tennessee Local Development Authority cleared the financing on August 24 and is a state body appointed rather than elected. The Duck River Watershed Planning Partnership voted 12 to 2. The customers outside Columbia's city limits, served by systems that buy Columbia's water, vote in none of those rooms and already pay more than the customers who do. When the first of five annual increases of up to 20 percent arrives, there is no ballot on which they can register an opinion about it.

What has not been disclosed. The conditions the TLDA attached to its August 24 approval are not public until the minutes post. Columbia has not published the year-one dollar impact on a median bill, inside the city or outside it, which is the only number most ratepayers actually need. The wholesale contracts between Columbia Power and Water Systems and the outside systems that buy its water, which govern how much of the pipeline's cost those customers absorb and on what schedule, have not been made public in the available reporting. And no party has published a projection of total ratepayer cost over the life of the debt, as opposed to the annual percentage.

Why the gap matters, and what we are requesting. A percentage is not a bill. Up to 20 percent a year for five years compounds to something a household can feel, and the people most exposed to it are the ones furthest from the vote that set it. That is not an accusation of bad faith by anyone in Columbia; it is the ordinary structure of a city utility selling water across a line, and it is exactly why the numbers should be published rather than derived by ratepayers from a news story. Memphis has the same shape at a larger scale, which is why this is worth watching from here. The 901 Report is requesting the Tennessee Local Development Authority's August 24, 2026 minutes and approval conditions, Columbia's adopted financing plan and its projected year-one bill impact for customers inside and outside the city, the wholesale water contracts between Columbia Power and Water Systems and the outside systems it serves, and any total ratepayer cost projection over the term of the debt. We will report what those records show.

Your city. Your money. Your receipts.

A $520 Million Pipeline, 20 Percent Rate Hikes, and 35,000 Customers With No Vote

Why It Matters for Memphis

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