Higher water bills

The North Carolina Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities said faulty electronic transmitters could be causing some unusually high water bills, but the department believes the vast majority of bill spikes are due to people using more water than they realize.  Faced with an increase in customer complaints about high bills, the Charlotte City Council asked Monday night whether the water billing software is billing correctly, and what they should tell constituents.

Last fall, residents of the Peninsula neighborhood in Cornelius complained of unusually high bills produced by the water billing software -- in some cases, more than $500 a month -- or abnormal spikes. Media coverage spurred more complaints citywide, and CMUD said it's struggling to investigate all of them.  Denise Foreman of CMUD said the department believes most spikes were due either to leaks or to people using more water than they realized. Another factor: CMUD raised rates in 2008, with the biggest increases being levied on the heaviest users.  But Foreman also said CMUD has investigated some complaints and has been unable to find a cause.  "One-time spikes can be a huge question," Foreman said. "We'd like to know why."

Bob Watson of Cornelius said the water bill at his business, a self-storage facility, jumped one month from the usual $30 or $40 bill to more than $500. "Something fishy is going on here," said Watson, who's part of a group trying to investigate the bills.  Council member Edwin Peacock, a Republican elected citywide, said he has received calls from residents who have years of water bills showing consistent usage -- then a one-time spike. After that, bills return to normal.  "How do we respond? How many people are we dealing with?" Peacock said.

Foreman said CMUD is confident its meters are accurate. She said they are mechanical devices, and the technology hasn't changed in 40 years.  A relatively new factor is that electronic transmitters now send meter readings to billing. Those were first installed in 2002, and Foreman said they can malfunction if moisture corrodes electronics or batteries wear down. The transmitters save the department about $1.6 million annually.  "We feel like we can trust our meters," Foreman said. "You can't program the meter electronically. They are mechanical devices. But the transmitters can mess up."

Getting the right rate

Yarmouth, in Canada’s Nova Scotia province, commissioned consultants to work out what the new water rates should be.  The rates were approved by Council.  The Yarmouth Water Utility was all set to entre the new rates into their water billing software.  And then … it emerged that the consultants had used the wrong base figures altogether.  The increase was to be a large one: 60 per cent in the first year, 22 per cent in the second year and 2 per cent in the third year.  However there was a problem with the way the rates were calculated. It turns out that the consultants who prepared the report didn’t use Yarmouth’s water billing base rates in calculating the new rates but rather those of another municipality.  The actual increase would “only” be 24.9 per cent in the first year, 21.9 per cent in the second year and 1.7 per cent in the third year.

The mistake comes from using a lower-than-actual base rate to calculate the percentage increase. All increases must first be approved by the province’s Utility Review Board. A hearing on the matter is expected to take place sometime in January or February.  A member of town staff detected the error during a review of the consultants’ report.  Have they been paid?  Why?

Stealing water

From opposite sides of the world come stories this week about stealing water.  There are multiple ways of doing this – getting water at a discounted price, by-passing the meter, or simply tapping the supply illegally are three of the most common.

In Mumbai commercial establishments have been found illegally tapping water meant for residential pockets in the city.  An audit on supply and distribution of water in the city has brought to light cases where commercial establishments are illegally consuming water meant for residential consumption.  The report, tabled before the standing committee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) recently, cites 407 cases. It was compiled by the office of the chief accountant (water supply and sewerage department) of the BMC. Instead of applying for a commercial connection, these establishments have been tapping water from domestic lines.

The BMC has differential charges for domestic and commercial connections. It charges between Rs25 and Rs38 per kilolitre of water for a commercial connection. In contrast, the rates for domestic users range from Rs2.25 to Rs3.50. The report says commercial establishments have been masking their identity to avail of domestic water connections.  Of the 407 cases, 221 are in the western suburbs, 95 in the island city, and 91 are in the eastern suburbs. The illegal connections have brought to nought the BMC's efforts to combat water shortage by restricting new commercial connections. The corporation is denying connection for projects where the daily water demand is over two lakh litres.  Interestingly, instead of taking action and discontinuing water supply to the violators, the BMC has regularised their connections after penalising them. Many of these connections receive 24 hours water supply while several residential colonies go without water. The audit report has also identified 100-odd cases where water bills were not being regularly sent.

In Monterey County, California, American Water says it is keeping a sharp lookout for thieves making off with one of the Peninsula's most precious commodities — water.   Cal Am announced Friday that it is making a concerted effort to deter the theft of water from its system — most typically by tapping fire hydrants without required permits and meters.  "We have asked all our employees to be on the lookout in the past couple of months," said Cal Am spokeswoman Catherine Bowie. The utility, which serves most of the Peninsula, is under standing state orders to reduce pumping from the Carmel River, conserve water and to reduce losses from its system.

Bowie said losses to the water supply have run as high as 13percent, but the utility has reduced that to about 10percent in recent months. The primary causes are leaks in the system, malfunctioning meters and theft, she said.  The utility can't estimate what share of the losses is attributable to thefts, but given the tight restrictions on Peninsula water use, Bowie said, "Even if it's 1percent — that's too much."  Most thefts are probably committed by builders who tap into fire hydrants to provide water on construction sites, Bowie said. The utility has found about 10 instances of theft in recent months, including a couple of places where someone hooked into Cal Am's system by "reverse plumbing."

New water bills in Nova Scotia

The Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board has approved Annapolis County council’s request to amalgamate three county water utilities and to introduce new water rates, a municipal spokeperson said in a media release. The combined utility has been renamed The Annapolis County Water Utility. In 2008, the municipality engaged consultants to study the water structures in the water utilities. The objectives of the study was to:

1. consider the feasibility of combining the three utilities – Margaretsville, Granville Ferry and Cornwallis Park - into a single entity, with common rules, regulations and rate structures
2. to develop the documentation necessary to apply to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board for new rate structure(s) designed to make water works operations sustainable.

“We were operating each utility as a separate accounting entity; much like separate corporations,” said Annapolis County Warden Peter Newton. “Under the Nova Scotia Utility Act, we are required to maintain separate sets of records for each Utility and to have separate financial audits of each utility carried out on an annual basis. We are also required to submit separate annual reports for each utility to the NS Utility and Review Board. Combining the utilities into a single entity reduces the administrative workload and the audit cost.”

Laurie Emms further explained the benefits of this amalgamation by saying the rate structure for each utility is supposed to reflect the cost of providing service and reflected in the consumers’ water bills. This is often difficult to predict the annual cost of operating a smaller utility, and can more accurately predict the annual cost of a larger unit. For example, if a smaller utility is required to address three water main breaks per year (average), the budget is established to repair three breaks a year. If the utility experiences five breaks in a fiscal year, operating compliance becomes a problem. If the Utility is large enough to warrant a 10 water main break per year budget, an additional two, unpredicted breaks has a lesser affect on the budget. The overall goal of the municipality is to have a self-sustainable and cost-effective utility.  The combined utility will look to consolidate their water billing software.

The bills won’t go up

An austere regulatory settlement could have forced Thames Water, the UK's largest water utility, to tap shareholders for up to £1bn.  The company might have had to raise the money by suspending its dividend for the full five years of the Ofwat's price review, industry sources said.  However Ofwat’s decision was not as bad as had been feared, so shareholders are safe.  Consumers have not benefitted so much.  Water bills will not be as “good” as they might have been under the draft decision.  Thames Water is owned by Australia's Macquarie Bank and a group of pension funds.

American Water expands

American Water's Pennsylvania subsidiary announced today that it had spent about $935,000 to acquire three water systems in north-central and western Pennsylvania. The systems, which serve a combined 600 people, are in Clearfield, Centre and Washington Counties, Pennsylvania American Water said. The parent company is based in Voorhees; Pennsylvania American Water is based in Hershey.

The purchases were: The Wallaceton Municipal Authority in Clearfield County, the Boggs Township Municipal Authority, Centre County, and the Amwell Township Water Authority in Washington County.

Delaying price rises in Manila

Metro Manila’s two water distributors have agreed to forego customer disconnections and shelve rate increases to help customers reeling from the effects of storm Ondoy. Water consumers will continue to enjoy uninterrupted service this October should they fail to settle their bills for the period, Diosdado Allado, administrator of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) said on Friday.

Manila Water Co. Inc. (MWCI) and Maynilad Water Services Inc. (MWSI) “have agreed to the initiative of the MWSS to implement a disconnection moratorium for [customers’] October water bill," Allado said in a text message. Manila Water has even given its customers “the option to pay for their October billing for a maximum term of 12 months," he added. The option “is to be applied to 79 barangays representing the areas hardest hit by storm Ondoy," he said.

In a separate announcement made during the same day, the Ayala-led utility said it has temporarily shelved a proposal to hike rates. The company distributes water to locations that remain flooded by the record amounts of rainfall brought by Ondoy. Instead of starting on October 2, the rate hike will be moved to November 1 this year

Water billing to promote conservation

Changes in the way water is billed are being mandated by a new state law to promote conservation. But what the rate changes will look like for Rochester (Minnesota) Public Utilities customers is up for discussion.  The utilities company hired a consultant to study possible conservation rate alternatives, which could be discussed possibly as early as the next meeting of the RPU board Sept. 29. The board would then seek public input and discussion on the proposed conservation rates.

"The idea is to be revenue neutral," said General Manager Larry Koshire, explaining that rate changes should not increase or decrease the water utility income. "If it works right, it would not sink the water utility."  And while the goal is also to have a zero rate increase overall for electric and water customers, that doesn't mean some customers won't pay more.   "Some rates will go up and some will go down," said Board President Jerry Williams.

A preliminary plan for the conservation rate targets irrigation, in hopes that higher rates would lead people to conserve water, Koshire said.  A draft of the electric and water operating budgets, along with any proposed rate adjustments, is expected to be presented at the Oct. 27 board meeting.

42% price hike!

Pittsville Wisconsin residential water bills will be 42 percent higher next year after the Wisconsin Public Service Commission authorized the utility's first rate increase since 1996.  Average residential customers paying $53.15 quarterly for 9,000 gallons of water will pay $75.24 when the new rates take effect in January. The new rates include public fire protection charges for fire hydrants and other firefighting-related infrastructure that was previously collected on property tax bills.  Excluding public fire protection charges from the calculation results in a 17 percent increase from $53.14 to $62.34 for average residential customers using 9,000 gallons per quarter, according to the PSC order issued Friday.

The Pittsville Municipal Water Utility needs more revenue to finance its search for water to supply the Gardner Cold Storage Co. facility, which can process 3 million pounds of cranberries a month.  "Their juice plant uses a lot of water, and they're putting on a freezer addition, adding to their capacity," said Pittsville Councilman Gerald Jensen.  To boost the water supply, Pittsville consolidated two wells and is looking for another well site on the north side of the city, Jensen said. The utility's other major capital investment was a water filtration plant to lower iron concentrations in groundwater.

Rates for commercial and industrial water customers will increase 23 to 25 percent, depending on the size of their connection, excluding the public fire protection charge. Adding the public fire protection charge will increase rates from 29 to 38 percent for the six commercial customer categories and 29 or 33 percent for the two industrial customer categories.  The utility sought a 5 percent rate of return on the value of its investment in the infrastructure last fall when it applied for the rate increase. PSC staff recommended a 1 or 2 percent increase, and the utility choose the 1 percent return, which will increase annual revenue by $25,083 to $239,681.

Raising water rates in Kansas

If Wichita KA City Council members don't raise water rates now, they will likely have to do it later, water officials said Tuesday. That's because the utility's bond rating is on the brink of a downgrade that, based on city estimates, could lead to $36 million in increased interest rates. The only alternative would be to delay or shut down the aquifer recharge project that local officials have said for years is key to the city's future.

Council members greeted this news with skepticism Tuesday, noting that interest rates could fluctuate anyway. But they showed little interest in four other options, including a property tax increase. Instead, they poised themselves to vote on a $2 base rate increase for all water customers and a 5 percent usage increase every year through 2013. The city is stuck in this bind because rainy weather has led to less water usage, which means the utility has less cash to pay off debt on major projects. Finance officials plan to study how decreased water use might affect the utility's budget. The council will examine that next week and likely vote on an increase in two weeks. If approved, the rate increases could start in August. The water billing software rate tables will be adjusted accordingly.

Indebtedness

The borrowing spree of the last few years is catching up with the public sector just like everyone else. In Mississippi Gulfport administration estimates the city needs to increase water and sewer rates a minimum of 15 percent for the upcoming fiscal year to cover debt payments. Finance Director Mike Necaise said all localities in Harrison County, not just Gulfport, will soon have to grapple with how to meet the costs of utility payments coming due.

When Katrina hit, the Harrison County utility authority, composed of the county and its five cities, decided to defer debt payments for two years. Necaise said the authority had about $100 million in debt at the time. The debt, he said, was refinanced at 7.5 percent, compared to the previous rate of 5 percent.

The deferred payments plus the higher interest rate mean Gulfport can no longer meet its debt payments with current revenue. Taking the money out of the city’s general fund is not viewed as an option. Incoming Mayor George Schloegel said he supports the rate increase over a property tax increase. He believes utility customers should pay for the service rather than all Gulfport property owners. “It’s consumption driven,” said Schloegel, who on Monday takes office along with a new City Council. “It’s got to be user-based. That’s the only equitable way.”

Feel my anger

In Florida the city of Cape Coral recently sent out letters to about 60,000 property owners, letting people know what they would have to pay for city utility expansions. In nine years, Cape Coral City Councilman Tim Day said he has never seen so many angry e-mails in response.

“It’s going to be a challenge to stay the course,” said Day, the longest-serving member of the city council. “I’m expecting extreme turmoil on June 30 (the first public hearing on UEP).”

Cape Coral officials this fall plan to start work on a three-year project to deliver city utilities to half of the city. The cost of that project will get passed on to property owners as special assessments and fees. Property owners have more deferral and financing options than in the past, but many are still upset.

The city is planning to install water, sewer and irrigation lines to about 6,200 properties in the Southwest 6-7 assessment area and potable water lines to more than 50,000 properties in the north Cape. Property owners will be charged a special assessment to pay for the pipes and a capital expansion charge to help offset the cost of new water and sewer treatment facilities.

Some water billing software provides for financing options to be billed to utility customers.

Unpaid bills amnesty

In Arizona, delinquent utility users in Surprise's Original Town Site owed the city about $262,000 in unpaid sewer and trash bills - some a decade old - but the city forgave 81 percent of the debt, according to public records. The City Council in March established the amnesty program, allowing people in 101 households to set up a payment plan with the city to bring their accounts current.

As of last week, about 20 percent of the accounts have been paid in full, but 14 people who set up payment plans have defaulted on them, resulting in a planned water shutoff either late this month or in July. The remaining debt is $40,102. However, the city will not see about $9,576 of that amount because 21 accounts are closed. City officials said that the customer moved out of the property or the land is now vacant. In one case, the customer died. The utility billing software contains a facility to write bills off.

The costs of water

Water has not only to be collected, stored and distributed; it must also be pumped. Running pumps use electricity. Electricity is not a cost of water that comes immediately to mind; nevertheless as electricity costs rise, so do some of the inputs to water costs. The water billing software prices charged o customers should reflect all of the inputs.

Everybody wants to cut their electric bill including the Lewisburg Water and Wastewater Department (TN) and last week the utility's board decided to investigate a way to do it. The utility might save $1,000 a month, thereby lowering a $15,000 part of its monthly $20,000 bill by almost 7 percent at a cost of $36,000, but that means the system pays for itself in three years, officials said.

California's water supplies

Mandatory water restrictions could be the beginning of a new way of life in California. Three key factors are reducing California's water supply:

- A third year of drought.

- Judicial restrictions on pumping from the state water project to save endangered fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

- And the Colorado River Basin has been in a drought for eight of the past 10 years.

Add to the mix a growing population in the Southwestern United States and you have a water future that's uncertain at best. And that will reduce the amount of water that can be sold. Fortunately well-designed water billing software can add a premium to the price when ater restrictions are flagged.

Utilities consolidation

Government utilities working together will ensure Saudi Arabia's power and water demands are met, Middle East Business Intelligence reports. Responsibility for the power and water sectors in Saudi Arabia is shared between four separate government owned utilities - the Water & Electricity Company, Saudi Electricity Company, the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) and the Power & Water Utility for Jubail & Yanbu (Marafiq).

Despite the companies all being tasked with ensuring the kingdom's growing demand for power and water is met, they have so far pursued this objective completely independently of each other. Now, spurred by the global economic slowdown, they have seen the error of their ways and recognised the need for a co-ordinated response to the demand picture. As a result, Marafiq and SWCC are now planning to merge what were to be two separate projects located at Yanbu.

SWCC and Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) also intend to combine their power and water schemes at Ras al-Zour. In both cases, the government has abandoned plans to develop the projects as private schemes and is opting instead for the more conventional engineering, procurement and construction approach. Greater co-operation between the various stakeholders in the power and water industries will ensure that the right amount of new capacity is built where it is needed and in the most efficient way possible. Marafiq, SWCC and Maaden have been forced into this position by the economic downturn.

More water prices rises

Wichita, Kansas is set to follow the world-wide trend to higher water bills. The monthly water bill would increase by $2 under a proposal that the Wichita City Council is scheduled to vote on 16 June. The proposed increase comes one year after Wichita's most recent monthly water bill increase of $1 and is meant to make up for an $8.8 million shortfall in projected revenue that the water utility experienced in 2008. If passed, the rate increase would be effective with customers' August bill. There are more rate increases to come. In August, the council is expected to consider a 5 percent rate increase for next year. By 2013, a family that uses a lot of water will be paying about 30 percent more for water and sewer services.

Selling waste

A Washington County sewer utility found a way to get rid of some of its most troublesome pollutants: sell them to gardeners. Clean Water Services installed a system at its Durham treatment plant that pulls phosphorus and ammonia from sewage waste and processes them into fertilizer pellets that are then sold to nurseries. The system, which began operating last month, is the first of its kind in the United States, and it’s drawing some big-name attention.

The project cost $2.5 million, including approximately $1 million for construction. Boring-based fabricator Marks Brothers built the stainless steel tanks and Stettler remodeled the existing facility to accommodate the new system. Ostara will market the fertilizer and split the profits with Clean Water Services, which expects to recoup the project cost in five years.

China's water crisis

If you don't have it you can sell it - or bill for it. And if it's not clean, consumers may not want it anyway. Business Week reports that over the past year getting clean water has been a struggle for many in China. In February one of the most severe droughts to hit China in a half-century affected some 5 million people and 2.5 million livestock in the provinces of Hebei and Henan, near Beijing. Farther south in Yancheng, Jiangsu, 300 kilometers from Shanghai, more than 200,000 people were cut off from clean water for three days when a chemical factory dumped carbolic acid into a river. Just before the Olympics last June, the coastal city of Qingdao, site of the sailing events, saw an explosion of algae in nearby waters that may have been caused by pollution.

These are hardly unusual in China. The country that has a long history of devastating floods and droughts arguably faces an even bigger water crisis today. After almost 30 years of double-digit economic growth and the migration of hundreds of millions of villagers to the cities, China has been barely able to meet the spike in demand for water. Its resources were scarce to begin with and pollution has made clean water even scarcer. Another unknown: the effect of climate change. "Based on our country's basic water situation, [we] must implement the strictest water resource management," said Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu at a national water conference in Beijing in January.

The effects of scarcity

The higher value ascribed to water has less to do with depletion and scarcity than cost. While there's as much water on the planet as there has ever been, cheap water is in short supply. "All the easily tapped sources have already been tapped," by damming up rivers and other methods, says Neil Berlant, lead manager of the PFW Water Fund (PFWAX), the only open-end mutual fund focused exclusively on water-related stocks. What remains are more expensive sources of water—from oceans, groundwater, or reclaimed used water—which require either desalination, chemical disinfectants, or other processes to be made suitable for drinking.

There's plenty of technology available to clean up water to meet increasingly strict public safety standards, but consumers will have to get use to paying higher rates to local water systems to pay for the necessary treatment. People in the developing world have long had little access to clean drinking water because of how much it costs.