SEWER RATES GO UP 17% SATURDAY FOR SINGLE-FAMILY CUSTOMERS
Businesses, condos and apartments will get 12% decrease
San Diego sewer customers living in single-family homes should prepare for some sticker shock when their rates spike 17 percent this week — and 31 percent over the next four years.
The sharp increases are the result of a comprehensive study that showed single-family sewer customers haven’t been paying enough while other customers — businesses, apartments
and condos — have been paying too much.
Rates for businesses will drop by 5 percent when the new year begins Saturday, while rates for condos and apartments will drop 12.1 percent.
The study said the city’s sewer system, which serves 2.2 million customers, needs more money to replace its aging pipes and to build the roughly $5 billion Pure Water sewage recycling system.
City officials say two downtown pipe ruptures in November demonstrated the urgent need to replace more city pipes, many of which date back to the 1960s or even earlier. The city has replaced roughly 180 miles of pipeline since 2013.
Also taking effect on Saturday is a 3 percent increase in city water rates. The County Water Authority raised rates for imported water 5.6 percent recently, and city officials said they are passing only 3 percent on to local customers.
Members of the City Council, which unanimously approved the rate increases in September, said they were reluctant to raise rates when many residents are still struggling with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But they said the city’s aging sewer infrastructure could collapse without money for upgrades. They also noted that rates haven’t increased in more than a decade, and there is help for customers experiencing financial hardships.
Residents may qualify for funding to help cover rent, utilities and Internet service. They can apply at covidassistance.sdhc.org. The city also has the “help to others” bill payment assistance program at sandiego.gov/ h2o.
Additional information about rate increases, including a customer bill calculator, is at sandiego.gov/rateincreases.
A typical customer in a single-family home would see their monthly bill increase from $40.52 to $47.64 next year. Their bill would then climb to $49.58 in January 2023, $51.53 in January 2024 and $53.07 in January 2025.
The increase to $47.64 would move San Diego up from third lowest among sewer agencies in the county to the middle of the pack. Customers in single-family homes make up 80 percent of the city’s sewer customers.
“We strive to keep costs as low possible, but we found that we could not continue improving our system and maintaining our services without raising rates,” city public utilities director Shauna Lorance said in September.
When the sewer rate changes for all customers are combined, the increase is projected to increase sewer system revenues by about 5 percent in 2022, 4 percent each in 2023 and 2024, and 3 percent in 2025.
Council members stressed that the sewer rate changes are phased in to soften the impact. They also noted that the increases are smaller than initially proposed because city officials got a second opinion from an outside consultant last spring.
With the rate increases comes a roughly 20 percent increase in the fee new sewer customers pay when they hook up to the system. That fee hasn’t increased since 2007.
The city is also updating for the first time since 1984 its industrial wastewater control program, which requires businesses to pay their fair share for anti-pollution efforts.
The spike in fees, which will affect more than 400 local businesses, will be phased in over four years starting in July 2022. A quarter of the increase will be levied each July through 2025.
The amount of increase varies depending on the kind of business and type of pollution.
A city audit last year found that between 2010 and 2019, only 14 percent of almost $40 million in costs was recovered from industrial polluters with permits. The rest, about $33 million, was charged to homes and other businesses as part of their sewer bills.