PORT ANGELES — Residents will pay an average $7.77 more each month next year for their utilities if proposed rate increases are adopted by the City Council on Oct. 20.
The increases, proposed by city staff, involve the water and wastewater utilities.
City staff are proposing that electrical, storm water, and garbage collection rates remain the same in 2010.
The highest increase would be in the city’s “combined sewer overflow” wastewater charges.
That rate is proposed to increase by $3.10 a month, or about 30 percent.
The standard wastewater fee is proposed to increase by an average of $1.50 a month, or 4 percent.
The base water and water consumption fees are both proposed to increase by 8.5 percent.
That means that residents would pay $2.10 more a month to be connected to the water utility, and on average, they would pay an additional $1.07 a month for water consumption.
New treatment plant
Glenn Cutler, city public works and utilities director, said the proposed changes to the water utility mainly stem from the new water treatment plant that the National Park Service will transfer to the city sometime in December.
The plant is under construction east of the city’s garbage transfer station.
The treatment plant, built by the park service, would filter silt from drinking water that will be released when the two Elwha River dams are removed in 2011.
It would also cost the city approximately $234,000 a year to operate, Cutler said.
The wastewater fee increases are due to capital projects that the city has planned for that utility next year, debt service and increased costs in benefits for employees, he said.
Combined sewer overflow fees charged to wastewater utility customers are used to pay back loans from the state Department of Ecology.
The loans fund a project that could cost up to $42 million to place the city in compliance with Ecology’s requirements.
Cutler said the fees, which are increased incrementally each year, will last for another 25 to 30 years.
Combined sewer overflow refers to portions of the city’s sewer system where sewage and storm water flow through the same pipes.
During heavy rainfall, the stormwater overflows the containment barriers in those pipes and sends untreated effluent into Port Angeles Harbor.
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 of $10,000 a day.
The city intends to use a 5-million-gallon tank on Rayonier Inc.’s former pulp mill site to store the sewage that would otherwise overflow into the harbor, and then drain it into the Port Angeles Wastewater Treatment Plant adjacent to the property.
The city expects to acquire the tank when the Port Angeles Harbor-Works Development Authority buys Rayonier’s property sometime around August 2010.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
