On Thursday, the San Jacinto River Authority approved a 14-cent increase in its water fees for residents who receive water under the SJRA Groundwater Reduction Plan, including residents of Conroe, The Woodlands and Magnolia. Starting Sept. 1, residents will pay an SJRA fee of $2.83 per 1,000 gallons of surface water from Lake Conroe and $2.64 per 1,000 gallons of groundwater, according to the SJRA. The fee is in addition to regular utility rates charged by their corresponding municipality or utility district. The SJRA attributes the majority of the fee increase to the cost of continuous litigation between the agency and the cities of Conroe and Magnolia—both of which voted not to pay for the SJRA's 18-cent fee increase in 2016. The SJRA and the cities have since been embroiled in a lawsuit filed by the SJRA in Travis County after the cities refused to pay the fee increase. The litigation, coupled with low water demand from residents in recent years, has led the SJRA to dip into its reserve funds. The agency has about $1.84 million in its reserves, which amounts to less than two months of its operating cost, SJRA GRP General Manager Mark Smith said. He added that the increase in fees will help grow the reserves back to a typical six-month supply of funds. "With our proposed rate increase, we hope that by the end of the next fiscal year we will have added funds back to that final balance so we have $4.95 million," Smith said. "That is still short of our six-month target—it is just less than three months of reserves. Part of what we are trying to accomplish is to begin rebuilding that fund balance so we will have funds on hand to deal with unexpected costs."