The Bakersfield City Council approved to appropriate more than $23 million from a litigation settlement at Wednesday night's city council meeting. 

In September of 2017, the city issued $23,075,000 in Domestic Water Revenue bonds to pay for a portion of the capital expenditures necessary to provide 1,2,3-Trichloropropane (TCP) treatment for various water wells within the city's domestic water system. 

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Part of the bond approval process required the city to authorize a series of Domestic Water Rate increases to assure the bond holders that sufficient revenues would be collected to repay the debt and maintain operations of the domestic water system. 

The first rate increase of 16 percent took effect October 1, 2017. A future rate increase of 13 percent was also approved, effective July 1, 2018. A 7.6 percent increase was also approved for July 1, 2019.

However, now that the city has approved to appropriate the money to the Domestic Water budget, those increases may go away.  

That is expected to be decided in February.