The Escanaba City Council has given final approval to large increases in waste and wastewater utility rates.
The city council held a special meeting Monday morning to set the ordinances for the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1st.
Water rates will be going up by 45-prcent and wastewater rates will rise by 20-percent. The city says that the water rate increase is largely due to a mandate that the city replace old lead service lines in the wake of the Flint Water Crisis, at a cost of about five thousand dollars per line.
Wastewater rates are rising as the city prepares to make improvements to the treatment plant, which has not been able to keep up with the flow as the city grows. The city has already had to send partially-treated wastewater into Little Bay deNoc twice this spring, after also having to do so last summer.
Electric rates were also set at Monday’s meeting, and those will rise slightly.
ORIGINAL CITY OF ESCANABA PRESS RELEASE:
The City of Escanaba is intending to implement a 45% increase in water rates starting July 1, 2019.
The City would like to provide information to answer the questions that will be asked.
Historically, Escanaba has had very low water and sewer rates. Other communities have had higher rates and, a more aggressive maintenance program for their utility systems. There are new State of Michigan rules that stem from the Flint water crisis. The State is mandating replacement of service lines from the water main all the way to every meter, which are inside of homes or businesses. We are now required by the State DEQ to replace thousands of service lines at a cost of $3,000 to $9,000 each.
For decades, water systems all over Michigan have used safe anti-corrosion additives to prevent lead in the system from leaching into the water. The City of Flint decided to connect to the Flint River as a water source.
Proper precautions were not taken, and lead leached into the water consumed by residents.
The Escanaba City Council is doing the responsible thing in adopting the recommendation of our Financial Advisor and staff, by implementing a 45% rate increase. We don’t WANT to, we NEED to. For many, many years our residents have avoided rate increases that should have been implemented. In the end, we will still be in the lower half of rates when compared to the other U.P. communities.
Wastewater rates are set to increase 20% this year. We have had overcapacity issues at the Wastewater Treatment Plant, which have resulted in release of wastewater into Lake Michigan. Our old pipe allows a large amount of groundwater to intrude into the wastewater collection system, creating capacity issues at the treatment plant. We are preparing to borrow from the State Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) to make improvements and expansions at the Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The City will not arbitrarily increase utility rates. We have developed a plan to provide the funds to make necessary improvements to our aging systems to meet state mandates.
We have tried to minimize the impact as best we can and yet meet the needs we have at this time and in the future.
