PORT ANGELES — The City Council will consider establishing a flat charge for 2015 residential water usage to encourage a greener, more garden-friendly Port Angeles.
The plan relies on increased summertime water consumption.
The proposal to replace the present three-tier, consumption-based system with one rate came out of a two-hour council work session Tuesday night.
“One of the assumptions is that there would be a 5 percent increase on water [usage],” Craig Fulton, city public works and utilities director, said Wednesday.
A proposed flat fee for water, which would not apply to commercial ratepayers, and its monetary impact on residents will be presented to the council Oct. 7, Fulton said.
He said public works also will determine the impact of keeping the monthly base charge for electricity at $16.77 instead of increasing it to a proposed $18.23, a 9 percent hike.
To do that and generate the same amount of revenue, the electricity consumption charge would have to increase 10.25 percent, according to a public works handout distributed at the work session.
The newly proposed rate structures for water and electricity in 2015 will be added to the options council members will consider when they mull again an ordinance at their next regular meeting at 6 p.m. Oct. 7 in council chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
This week’s work session was scheduled after residents expressed concerns at a Sept. 16 public hearing about a proposed ordinance that included water, wastewater and electricity rate increases that would go into effect Jan. 1.
The proposed 2015 rate hikes would have increased residential ratepayers’ average annual bills to $182.16 and average commercial annual bills to $190.92 for electricity, water and wastewater utilities.
After hearing objections over the rate hike’s impact, the council voted 4-2 against Councilman Brad Collins’ motion to approve the increases but then decided to review it again.
The rate hikes would begin paying for what city officials say is the true cost of service to provide the utilities and to prevent different rate classes from subsidizing each other.
The critics said the average $182 annual increase — $15.16 a month in 2015 — would be too burdensome on working families and low-income residents.
The city is planning for annual increases in utilities from 2015 to 2019 to reflect the cost of providing the services and to pay for infrastructure improvements.
Although the present proposal is only for 2015, annual increases are planned through 2019, culminating in five years in an estimated increase of hundreds of dollars annually for ratepayers.
The flat-fee water proposal was largely driven by Councilman Lee Whetham.
The flat rate would help encourage more people to grow flowers and gardens, not to mention water their lawns, he said.
“We’ve got water,” he said.
The city has an Elwha River municipal water right for domestic use that allows 32.3 million gallons per day, Fulton said Wednesday.
He said average daily water consumption for the city and wholesale customers ranges between 2.75 million and 3.4 million gallons a day, with peak daily consumption between 6.10 million and 7.17 million gallons daily.
But Deputy Mayor Patrick Downie, who chaired the work session in Mayor Dan Di Guilio’s absence, suggested residents might not care that their lawns are brown for most of the year.
“Are we so sure that people in fact do have this burning desire to have the town be green?” Downie asked.
“I worry a bit whether that really is true.”
Whetham said he expected the city would lose money under the plan for the first half of the year.
“We are building this for consumption during the dry months,” he said.
“I don’t know that we need a quarterly report on this.”
Byron Olson, the city’s chief financial officer, responded that a monthly report would be provided “whether you want it or not” to avoid putting the city “in a difficult position.”
Collins said he favored figuring out how to sell more water if it did not hurt low-income residents.
He also said the council should be “mindful of the fact that you don’t have total control over the water supply.
“I just feel you need to have some way of controlling the upper end of use on water,” Collins added.
Olson warned of the impact of a flat water charge on city finances.
“Show me the numbers,” he said, promising city officials would monitor, on a monthly basis, the monetary impact of a flat rate and the water usage levels that would ensue.
“It will not take much of a negative trend to put the city and its water utility in a very difficult position,” Olson said.
He warned that if revenue goals are not met under a flat fee, the City Council could need to consider a rate adjustment by mid-2015.
“If we wait until September or October, the hole we dig could be awfully hard to fill before the end of the year,” Olson said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
