Decrying a 600 percent increase in their culinary water rates, numerous business owners told the American Fork City Council in an open house Thursday that they would be forced to close their doors or relocate if the city imposed the rate increase.

In theory, the raise in rates is already in effect. The fact sheet for businesses says the charges started Nov. 1 and would appear on bills in April after March water meter readings. However, Mayor Heber Thompson said the amounts could be revised.

"The council will talk with consultants," he said. "We will see if the structure will make sense."

He promised the business owners they were not just going through the motions of pretending to listen to them.

"We have not already made up our minds," he said.

The structure that was put in place but has not yet been billed calls for higher rates for culinary water for everyone, both residential and business, but it has a sliding scale which would charge more for those who use the most water. The city has produced a list of 30 of the most impacted businesses or developers; the list shows a more than $10,000 per year increase for those businesses. The largest of the users was Morinda, which operates the Tahitian Noni plant. It would have an increase from $16,044 to $95,844 annually.

Many of the largest users were not in attendance at the hearing and several of those who spoke said they had just barely heard about the meeting. The city sent out notices with water bills and in business license renewal forms, but the business owners said they had either not seen them or employees had not passed them along.

Former mayor B. Kay Hutchings is one who had not been aware of the meeting until a few days before. He said his rate for Durfey Dry Cleaners would be increased 550 percent, from $1,300 to $6,000. He expressed concern.

"It makes it tough for me to compete with my competitors in Lehi, Highland and Pleasant Grove," he said. "To put nearly a 600 percent increase on a business is way unfair. I think that if people had an idea what was coming, you would have had a different vote." He referred to the vote in 2007 in which the residents approved a $48 million bond to fund the pressurized irrigation system.

Sylvan Buhler spoke passionately about the laundromat he has had on east State Street for 48 years.

"Over the years, I have seen some pretty discriminatory legislation that has affected my business, but this is the most costly discriminatory legislation that my business has ever had," he said. "It will raise my bill an enormous 600 percent."

"I think you don't understand the impact when you passed this legislation," he said. He said his customers would have to pay six times as much for the water they use to wash their clothes as those who do laundry in their homes.

"I think you don't realize what it means," he said. "Businesses can't believe it. It is going to close a lot of business doors."

He was one of several who asked the council to more evenly distribute the water charges.

"I think there are a lot of residences here in American Fork," he said. "If you distribute the cost of this new system to all the homes more than you have, it would at least alleviate some of the impact. Six hundred percent is absolutely atrocious."