Water rates to rise after Cambria protest fails

Cambrians’ rates for water and sewage-treatment will rise March 1, following a unanimous vote of Cambria Community Services District directors.

A protest movement failed to generate enough formal written protests to stop the rate hikes, according to Assistant County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano. She tallied the official objections that ratepayers had submitted about the proposed increases.

According to state law, stopping that kind of rate increase requires protests by 50 percent of customers, plus one.

Cano didn’t do a full validation tally at the special hearing Feb. 9, checking that each protest met the rules. Her initial count showed only 1,219 protests were submitted. Since 1,969 would have been needed to stop the water-rate hikes, and 1,915 to stop the increases for sewage treatment, going further with the validation process wasn’t necessary, according to district officials.

The requirements are different because some Cambria properties still use septic systems, rather than being connected to the district’s sewage-collection system.

A typical residence using six units of water per bi-monthly billing period would see an increase of $33.24 for water and sewage treatment, bringing the total to $168.94 for two months usage.

Ratepayers likely to see the largest percentage increases in their bills are commercial accounts with larger meter sizes and, ironically, hyper-conserving Cambrian residents.

The latter will pay more because under the new rate structure, everybody will be charged for every unit of water used, rather than getting the first four units free (or six, as had been the case before the district imposed stronger water restrictions last summer).

More than 50 percent of the district’s residential customers use four units of water or less each billing period. (A unit is 748 gallons or 100 cubic feet.)

Starting March 1, those water units will cost the 4-units-and-under consumer $6.50 each, which will add $26 to a bi-monthly water bill that had been costing about $23.82 (not including charges for the EWS, or emergency water system which has been renamed the Sustainable Water Facility).

The so-called “fixed water charge” also is to increase by $1.68.

The increases were needed, district officials and their consultant said, because rates the customers pay are supposed to cover cost of providing the service. The water and sewage treatment departments are supposed to be self-sufficient, and aren’t.

For details about the increases, go to www.cambriacsd.org and click on the “Rate Study Presentation 12-29-2015.”

This story was originally published February 17, 2016 at 11:13 AM with the headline "Water rates to rise after Cambria protest fails."