San Diego Residents Receive $1.40 Water Rate Hike

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published October 9, 2007 at 8:42 AM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

San Diego city residents will see their water rates go up an average of $1.40 a month. Its the second rate increase this year, but this time its not to pay for crumbling infrastructure.

San Diego city residents will see their water rates go up an average of $1.40 a month. It’s the second rate increase this year, but this time it’s not to pay for crumbling infrastructure. Ninety percent of San Diego's water comes from outside the region and this hike passes along the increased cost of water from other agencies. San Diego water officials said that if residents meet the challenge to save 20 gallons of water a day, their water bills will go down, not up.

Most of the public opposition at City Hall was not to the rate hike, but rather to the fluoride that will be added to the water coming from further north . But San Diego Deputy City Attorney Tom Zeleny said there is no point blaming the city.

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Zeleny: The city is not the body putting the fluoride in, neither is it the County Water Authority. It's the Metropolitan Water Authority. The California Legislature has said it's a matter of policy for the benefit the health of the people of California to put fluoride in.

The water from the Metropolitan Water Authority will be mixed with water from other sources, so residents in different parts of the city will have different levels of fluoride in their water.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.

San Diego Residents Receive $1.40 Water Rate Hike

San Diego city residents will see their water rates go up an average of $1.40 a month. Its the second rate increase this year, but this time its not to pay for crumbling infrastructure.

San Diego city residents will see their water rates go up an average of $1.40 a month. Its the second rate increase this year, but this time its not to pay for crumbling infrastructure.