NEVADA CITY Calif. February 3, 2012 - Residents here are entering the second of three years of steadily growing water bills as the city tries to get its water fund back in the black.
"We have projected that the gap for calendar year 2011 between revenues and expenditures in the water department will be $210,000," City Manager David Brennan told The Messenger. Before the rate increases began he says the city was losing a lot of money on water and now they are losing less than before. "The water fund is in a negative balance of about $750,000. That's a hole we have to fill, eventually."
The City Council decided to phase in the rate increases over three years, 2010, 2011, and 2013. The water fund is currently not piling up any money to repair the town's aging water delivery infrastructure, Brennan added.
"The oldest part of the city's infrastructure is the water system," City Engineer Bill Falconi said. "Some of the pipes downtown date back into the 1860s. After the big fires in the late 1850s and early 60s they put water mains all through downtown. Some of them are still there. They are woefully in need of change.
"We also need to change out some pipes that are too small for the current residency." He estimates the work needed to be done to the water infrastructure will cost between three and four million dollars. Falconi said the repaving of Broad Street a couple of years ago followed $60,000 worth of water facility work under the street.
"We've just identified the streets we're going to repave this summer," Public Works Director Verne Taylor said. His crew now will go through and check the flow rate of water meters on those streets. "If we have a service connection with a low flow then we'll replace it. We can do the small stuff, but we don't have the funds to change a water main." Measure S to repave all city streets mandates that the tax increase pay only for paving, nothing else.
Another problem confronting the city is that water is pushed through the pipes by gravity and Falconi said pressure relies on the height of water tanks. Because of growth into more elevated areas Nevada City has developed water pressure problems. "That has to be corrected by adding some altitude to some tanks," Falconi said.
Just a problem money can solve.
"We've been very fortunate,"Brennan said, "to secure a $1.4 million grant to do a significant amount of underground work on water lines."
As they have been repaving city streets under voter-approved Measure S, Falconi and Taylor have had an eye to the water mains running underneath the asphalt, to avoid future repaving. Water main replacement moved along ahead of the paving on West Broad, Alexander, and Boulder.
The new water charges include a fee for merely having a water meter, whether you use a drop of water or not. By 2013 the meter fee and cost of a month's water for one Nevada City homeowner interviewed by The Messenger could grow to more than $100, according to his estimates. "Our bill would be $60 a month in 2013," Roger Savage said, "without watering the yard. If we water outside it'll probably be double that, to $110, $120 a month."
Is Brennan getting static from water users about the higher cost of water?
"There seems to be a correlation between the people that are most unhappy with the rate increases and how much water they use. We had one person come in and complain about the water bill, and I just looked at that person's bill the other day and the water use is now one-quarter of the amount they used under the flat rate. They got the message.
"In February we're going to launch a water conservation program to provide assistance to people, helping them install simple water conservation measures, and we're going to do some education. We want people to conserve water. It's wasting water that drives bills up; maybe a leaky toilet, maybe a shower head that uses five gallons a minute instead of two gallons."
With the death of the old flat fee, water conservation has become very important.
On the other side of the billing complaint coin, some 500 to 600 wintertime water users are paying less under the new rates than under the old. "Under the old flat rate the lower water users were subsidizing the higher water users," Brennan said. In the summertime, with lawn watering, the number of people paying less than before drops to 200 or 300 residents.
On February 22 The council will reconsider the new water rates. "They can modify the increase downward if they want." Brennan added. That could become an evening filled with strong complaints about the new rates.
Editor's note: The Mountain Messenger, California's oldest weekly newspaper since 1853, is published on Thursdays from Downieville, California.
The Mountain Messenger can be purchased for half a buck at the National Hotel (sidewalk), Nevada City Post Office (sidewalk), Nevada City SPD (outside) and Nevada City Express Mart (outside.)
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