PWSA to raise rates by nearly 14 percent
Utility replacing its old, lead water lines
Rate increases of about 14 percent are in store for Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority customers.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission voted 5-0 Thursday to let PWSA boost rates for residential and other customers who receive water and sewer service from the municipal utility, PUC spokesman Nils Hagen-Frederiksen said.
For a typical residential customer receiving both water and sewer service from PWSA, the increase should be nearly $9 a month, he said. Average PWSA residential charges run about $64 monthly for such households. The changes take effect before month’s end.
“Our new rates will help us continue to replace lead lines and improve our critical water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure,” PWSA Executive Director Robert Weimar said in a statement.
Although the utility sought a higher overall increase — including a 17 percent hike for homeowners — Mr. Weimar thanked people who intervened “to reach an agreeable settlement that considers our most vulnerable customers” while supporting system investments.
Likewise, Mr. Hagen-Frederiksen said the new rates reflect “an amount that all parties, including [community] advocates, had agreed was necessary to maintain safe and reliable service.”
Increases for residential customers will amount to 14 percent; for commercial, 13.7 percent; for industrial, 13.2 percent; and for
health care and educational, 13.6 percent, according to PUC and PWSA.
“We’re happy with this rate,” PWSA board Chairman Paul Leger said. “For the present and for going into the future, I think we want to look at the nonresidential rates and how to blend them in a way to take some of the burden off residential customers, to even the rates out.”
The utility has been working to rebuild and stabilize its systems after decades of lackluster upkeep. The new pricing should deliver about $21 million more each year for PWSA, or some $6 million shy of the annual bump that the utility wanted, according to PUC.
But the more modest amount shouldn’t hurt the authority “because we budgeted for the lower figure,” Mr. Leger said. The rates should be in place at least through 2020, according to the authority, which fell under PUC regulatory oversight starting last year.
The rate plans were revised through negotiations during the PUC process following filings from concerned parties, such as the Pittsburgh United coalition.
“We all have the right to water, so we want to make sure it’s affordable to customers,” said Jennifer Rafanan Kennedy, executive director at Pittsburgh United. The group believes “this settlement will continue to take [PWSA] in the right direction.”
Specifically, the PUC rate decision includes provisions that expand assistance for lower-income customers. That should ease the effect of higher rates, Ms. Kennedy said.
Other provisions include free water filters for customers who have lead service lines — or service lines of unknown material — and qualify for the utility’s low-income programs, Pittsburgh United said in a news release.
Not everyone cheered the new rates. Former state Sen. Jim Ferlo panned the PUC decision as “rate shock” after earlier increases. PWSA charges went up about $15 a month in January 2018 for average residential customers. That followed an increase of some $7 a month in 2017.
PWSA should coordinate better with other utilities on field work to save money, said Mr. Ferlo, of Highland Park. He questioned why the authority is “trying to rebuild infrastructure that dates to the 1880s.”
“I think it’s irresponsible that the political establishment has not looked at alternatives,” Mr. Ferlo said.