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How To Bill Water Consumption


by turfgrrl


June 26th, 2008 · 1 Comment

The Common Council approved the WPCA budget but issues remain about how the billing is executed. The Hour reports:

The Common Council narrowly approved a $12.8-million operating budget to keep the city’s wastewater treatment plant running after July 1.

At issue was not the bottom line of the Water Pollution Control Authority’s 2008-09 operating budget, but the fairness of annual flat fees charged residential and commercial sewer users.

Some council members believe consumption-based billing would be fairer to water users, and that a forthcoming study will bear that out.

Mayor Richard A. Moccia isn’t so sure.

“To vote against the budget because you don’t like the way it’s billed, I think it’s a little late in the game to come up with it. But we did get (the budget) passed, and we’ll move forward, and we’re doing a study,” Moccia said. “I don’t think the study is going to show that the savings they think is going to be there. But we’ll wait until they have it released.”

Democrats Steve Serasis, Phyllis Y. Bolden and Carvin J. Hilliard, as well as Republican Nicholas D. Kydes, voted against the budget. Republicans Douglas E. Hempstead and Richard M. McQuaid, as well as Democrat Michael K. Geake, abstained. Seven others voted ‘Yes.’

Republican Kelly L. Straniti, while having reservations about the flat fee, voted ‘Yes.’

“I’m not happy with the fact it’s a fee — I think it should be put back into our taxes, so we could get credit on it,” Straniti said. But “overall, shifting to a metered rate, I’m not really in favor of that. It’s possible that someone in a smaller house could have more people (and use more water).”

At the same time, Straniti said she supports studying consumption-based billing. For some time, Hempstead and Hilliard have opposed the flat-fee system.

“Doug and Carvin have been asking for (a study) for years. I think they got the message across that they really want this taken seriously,” Straniti said.

source: The Hour, 12.8 million approved for Water Pollution Control Authority — barely, By ROBERT KOCH, June 26, 2008

Tags: Norwalk

One Response so far ↓ “How To Bill Water Consumption”



  • 1 old timer // Jun 29, 2008 at 9:51 am

    Without metering there is no really fair system for paying for sewer treatment plant use. Fees based on water bills are not true indicators. Washing cars and watering lawns does not put more burden on the sewer plant, but adds to the water bill. Some of us pay water bills and are not connected to the sewers. Fee for service for sewer treatment doesn’t make much sense. The city paid for sewer treatment out of tax revenue and only people in sewered parts of town paid that tax rate and got City garbage collection, too. Switching to a fee system without having a way to measure sewer use was stupid and only meant to make it look like taxes were not going up too fast. Taxes went up anyway. Who are they kidding ?
    A lot of us seniors remember when an annual salary as high as my current tax bill was a very good salary.

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