Starting Soon, Your Water Bill Could Go Up
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Your water bill could soon look a whole lot different, thanks to a proposal from the Baltimore City Department of Public Works.
Under the proposed rate schedule, the department wants to raise how much residents pay for water and sewer services incrementally over the next three years. As WJZ's George Solis reports, the changes could come starting as soon as October.
If the plan is approved, the agency would introduce what they're calling "single-digit" water and sewer rate adjustments on Oct. 11, again on July 1, 2017, and once more the following year on July 1, 2018. In fact, each increase would raise your bill by 9.9 percent, just shy of double-digits.
To put that in perspective, if you're paying $233 per bill right now, it would climb to roughly $275 by 2019.
The department told WJZ the rate increases are necessary to fund the maintenance and replacement of aging infrastructure. Some of it, public works said, will also go toward the installation of state of the art water meters in the city and county.
"We're talking billions of dollars over the years ahead," said DPW spokesperson Jeff Raymond. "And there's just not money available to us to continue that work ahead."
The plan also calls for changes to what residents are actually billed for, specifically scaling back charges for consumers who aren't using much water. Part of that includes scrapping minimum charges. "This would encourage conservation of water and ensure that a customer's bill more accurately reflects how much water they use," the agency said in a news release. It
"We're also going to be getting rid of these minimum charges that people have seen or heard about over the years," Raymond told WJZ.
The department also wants to make customers ages 65 and older, whose household income is not more than $30,000 a year, eligible for a 43 percent discount on consumption charges. It's also calling for the credit for low-income assistance be increased from $179 to $197.
Still, everyone customer would be subject to an infrastructure fee to defray the costs of capital improvements, which are estimated at $1.3 billion over the next six years for water lines, and more than $700 million for sewer lines.
One resident told WJZ he's looking forward to only paying for the water he's using. "I do know that they need to bring up the infrastructure," he said. "Whether the fees are fair, I mean I don't like paying more, but we have good quality water."
This, public works said, is in light of a number of critical water main failures on Light street, Madison Street, Charles Street, Argonne Drive, Dundalk Avenue, Belair Road , and Willington Avenue within the last decade. The city also intends to make improvements to the Vernon, Cromwell, Pikesville, Towson, Ashburton, and Guildford pumping stations. Plus, the city wants to make improvements to the Montebello Water Filtration Plants and build a new plant for Fullerton.
Under the proposal, public works would also adopt a monthly billing structure instead of the current quarterly billing system. Using that system, customers "will find it easier to monitor and adjust their water usage, and even find leaks or unexpected consumption more quickly."
The public works department has asked for the Baltimore City Board of Estimates to call a public hearing at 9 a.m. on Aug. 31 to mull over the proposed changes.
