PORT ANGELES — Proposed increases in water utility rates were too much for some City Council members to swallow this week.
The council on Tuesday night approved two ordinances to increase some utility rates for 2010 — which in total will cost the average residential customer $4.60 more per month — but they didn’t include an 8.5 percent increase for both water base and water consumption rates.
The higher water rates would have added an additional $3.17 on an average residential utility bill.
The proposed hike in the cost of city water wasn’t the highest proposed increase — combined sewer overflow, or CSO, charges were approved to increase by 30 percent, or on average by $3.10 per month on Tuesday.
But unlike the CSO rate, which funds a state mandated project, the water utility may provide the city with the most flexibility to reduce utility costs.
Wastewater rate
The only other hike is in the general wastewater rate, which will increase 4 percent in 2010 and cost the average residential customer $1.50 more per month.
While city staff members say they have made moves to reduce utility supply costs next year, the City Council delayed action on adjusting the water rates in hopes that even further reductions can be made.
“If there is anyway to hold the line on any of these fee increases, without tying the hands of any of these utilities, I would certainly be supportive of that,” said City Council member Dan Di Guilio.
City staff say they are proposing the higher water rates to offset higher service costs, mainly due to a new water treatment plant that will go online next year.
The plant is being built by the National Park Service to sift sediment from drinking water that will be released by the Elwha River when its two dams are removed in about two years.
Operating the plant is expected to cost the city $3.8 million for the next 27 years. The plant, which also puts the city in compliance with a 2007 state drinking water requirement regarding surface water, is expected to come online in December.
Transfer station
Utility fees, such as dumping garbage at the city’s transfer station, will also have percentage increases in the single digits next year due to the ordinances passed Tuesday, but electrical, storm water and garbage collection rates will remain the same.
City Engineer Steve Sperr told council members that the city would have to cut $40,000 in utility costs to reduce the proposed water rate hikes even by 1 percent.
Twenty-one questions
From City Council member Cherie Kidd’s perspective, it wasn’t too late to take one more look at the city’s utility costs.
Before the meeting, she presented staff with a list of 21 questions regarding expenses — including a 65-inch flat-screen TV monitor purchased for $3,899 around January and a $514 ergonomic chair purchased around August, both for the Public Works and Utilities Department.
“I just think we have to set the tone for showing the community that we are really cost-cutting in every single area,” Kidd said at the meeting.
So why does the city need a nearly $4,000 television and a chair that costs more than $500?
Terry Dahlquist, city electrical engineering manager, said Wednesday that the monitor is used as a control center for the city’s electrical distribution system.
“It shows the status of all the substations, the wiring, the distribution wiring and pretty much the wiring for the main feeders of the whole system,” he said.
Dahlquist said city staff previously tacked pins and sticky notes to a large map where there were electrical problems, and the new system — which costs somewhere between $50,000 and $60,000 — helps the city restore power sooner after storms.
“When we are trying to restore power to people, you can see right away where your outages are concentrating,” he said.
Pricey chair
Bob Coons, city human resources manager, said the pricey chair is for an employee that has either a back or neck injury. He couldn’t provide any further information on the injury.
Coons said the city is required by state law to find a chair that accommodates an employee’s injury or physical ailment.
While he said the city doesn’t buy $500 chairs for people without a physical issue, he didn’t know the cost of the typical chair the city buys.
But the list of expenditures that the City Council approved on Tuesday may shed some light on that.
It included the purchase of two chairs at a combined cost of $417.
Other issues
Other issues brought up by Kidd at the meeting included utility supply costs that will still be much higher next year than 2008 or 2007 levels despite proposed cuts.
For example, office and operating supply costs for the water utility are proposed to decrease by about 21 percent in 2010 to about $22,900, but that would still be an 88 percent increase over 2008, when that expense was $12,185.
City staff members said that the costs aren’t proposed to decrease any further in order to cover the costs of the new water treatment plant and to comply with state requirements.
Kidd said Wednesday that she was satisfied with the answers to her questions, but that she still hopes staff can further reduce utility expenses.
“If I can find area where we can cut back, we can potentially lower rate increases,” she said. “That’s why I have to inquire.”
Sperr said at the meeting that he doesn’t think that some of the rate increases will still meet the utilities’ financial needs.
“In my mind,” he said, “we are deferring to the future which we should be doing today.”
Loan payments
The CSO fee, which will increase the most next year, is used to pay back large loans from the state Department of Ecology.
The loans are used to design and build new infrastructure to divert untreated sewage that would otherwise overflow into Port Angeles Harbor during heavy rainfall to a storage tank on site of Rayonier Inc.’s former mill.
The sewage would then be sent to the Port Angeles Wastewater Treatment Plant adjacent to the property.
The city has loaned $10 million and is expecting to loan between $42 million and $45 million to finish the project.
Ecology is requiring that the city reduce overflow incidents from the 30 to 100 a year that it currently has to no more than four by 2016 or face fines that can be as great as $10,000.
The CSO fees, which increase incrementally each year, will continue for another 25 to 30 years, city Public Works and Utilities Director Glenn Cutler has said.
The city is expected to acquire the tank when the Port Angeles Harbor-Works Development Authority purchases the 75-acre property from Rayonier.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
