The firm said that from 3 January customers would see bills rise by £49 a year, to an average of £1,300, but it claimed it was "holding back rising costs" from government schemes to limit price rises.
But they are still proposing to build a new levee high enough and strong enough to hold back even those rising tides, to keep the water from reclaiming for itself the land that once was, but for the moment no longer is, part of the bay.
Residents in flooded towns have worked desperately to build sandbag levees in the hope of holding back the rising waters.
For weeks, the dam of rock and mud holding back the rising waters of the Jian River there has threatened to burst and flood towns and cities downstream that are home to 1.3 million people.
U.S. stocks opened lower, held back by rising oil prices, while the U.S. dollar was firming against the euro, after negotiations for a European budget fell apart.
"I was trying to suppress my mounting unease, to hold back the rising flood of memory".
But is not enough to hold back the rising tide of flood risk, driven by climate change, that affects millions more.
As Bahrain's leaders struggle to hold back a rising popular revolt against their absolute rule, Washington's posture toward the Shiite majority, which is spearheading the opposition, could prove crucial to future relations with this strategically valuable Persian Gulf nation.
Reprints Related items The surveillance societyApr 29th 1999Always observedYet here is a bold prediction: all these efforts to hold back the rising tide of electronic intrusion into privacy will fail.
