PORT ANGELES — A public hearing on the city’s proposed $2 a month increase in residential sewer rates continues at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
The public hearing, the fourth of five scheduled, will begin after 7 p.m.
Tuesday will be the final opportunity for public comment prior to adoption of the proposed new rates.
The rate would increase a resident’s monthly residential sewer bill from $36.25 to $38.25 beginning in January.
All other rate classes, such as commercial and industrial, also would increase 5.5 percent.
First of several increases
The proposed increase could be the first of numerous annual increases over as long as 20 years that could more than double the city’s residential monthly sewer rate.
The additional money will fund capital projects to reduce the size and frequency of what city engineers call “combined sewer overflows.”
Such overflows occur when too much storm water enters the city’s sewer system, overflows the system’s containment barriers and dumps raw sewage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Port Angeles Harbor.
