After seven hours of debate, San Diego City Council voted last night for what was called the biggest water and sewer rate hikes in the city’s history. The increase will raise more than $400 million to fix the crumbling sewer and water systems. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.
The city is up against the wall. If it doesn’t fix its crumbling sewer system, the federal Environmental Protection Agency will levy heavy fines. If it doesn’t shore up its water supply system, the California Health Department will weigh in .
San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders reminded the city council that as far back as his inaugural address last year he said he wouldn’t raise taxes but he would raise rates.
Sanders: We simply have no choice but to move forward today with my plans to improve the water and waste water infrastructure. To not do so would put the city and the ratepayer of both systems at great risk.
City Water officials said they plan to use the money to replace 15 to 20 miles of aged pipe a year. That may seem ambitious but one speaker calculated that to replace all its pipes every 100 years, the city would actually have to replace 35 miles a year.
The business community was united behind the rate hikes. Scott Alvey spoke for the Chamber of Commerce
Alvey: We at the Chamber see this as an investment -- not as an increased fee -- but an investment in our future.
Another supporter pointed out the average homeowner’s water rates amount to less than a $1.50 a day - not much more than they pay for an 8 oz bottle of drinking water . But not everyone was accepting of the increases. Outside City Hall, consumer groups challenged the new water rate structure.
Susan Deurkson is with the Center on Policy Initiatives -- a labor backed think tank that researches issues affecting working families.
Deurkson: We are not opposed to a rate increase, but we are opposed to a rate structure that requires working families to pay more for a gallon of water than the average business.
According to the CPI’s analysis, residential rates will go up faster than business rates, especially in the first year. In fact the city’s letter to all residents specified a 6.5 percent increase -- their water rates will actually jump more than 11 percent in 2008.
When questioned by council members about this, city staff spoke recalibrating the rate structure to make it fairer. But Rolando resident Lee Rittener, one of several more savvy residents who managed to decipher the city’s technical tables, didn’t think the changes were fairer.
Rittener: When I went through the list, the bigger the meter the more the decrease in fees. At the lower residential end, we will actually take an increase. Why are the residents brunting most of this burden?
Ritener said he’s been trying to improve the neighborhood by keeping the lawn of his rental watered. But he estimated if he keeps doing that his combined water and sewer bill will go from $110 dollar a month to $166 dollars a month -- a 50 percdent increase over four years. His lawn, he implied, may bite the dust.
Julie Hooper, a retiree, spoke for all those living on Social Security,
Hooper: We got a 3.3 percent raise this year and you’re talking about a 6.5% raise on one bill that I have to pay. Where’s the money going to come from? If I don’t get it are you going to cut my water off?
Other speakers said the rate hikes threaten older affordable housing units, where the owners can’t raise rents to cover the extra costs. Staff at St Vincent de Paul Village calculated their annual bill, which is $204,000 will go up by $58,000 after four years of increases.
But the rate hikes got solid support from another group- clean water advocates.
Bruce Resnick, executive director of Coast Keeper said San Diego led the nation in beach closures in 2000 because of sewage spills, but since then the city has cut sewer line breaks by 75 percent and is now a poster child for improving water quality
Resnick: We will loose those gains that we have made if we don’t continue to invest.
Resnick pointed out that if the money for the upgrades does not come from rate increases it would have to come out of the budget that pays for police, fire, libraries and parks -- and everyone knows that is stretched to the limit.
San Diegans will find out just how the new rates will affect their pocket books when they open their bills later this summer. Alison St John, KPBS News.
