Homeowners in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties would pay $240 more a year in fees for water, plus a rate increase of almost 10 percent under a proposal recommended by County Executive Ike Leggett and advanced by a County Council panel Thursday.
The proposed $20 monthly fee would go toward service improvements. Montgomery County has experienced significant issues with water service during the past year as its pipes age, including roughly 1,900 water main breaks between July 2006 and July 2007. A water main break shut down River Road this summer, and another break flooded basements around Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda and left thousands of customers without service.
“Where a lot of these breaks were happening were where my constituents live,” Council member Valerie Ervin said. “So they can live with a few extra dollars a month more, I believe, to make sure this infrastructure is replaced so there’s not a water main break every other day or however often they break.”
Under the plan endorsed by Leggett, an average bill for single-family homeowners would increase 50 percent, from about $50 a month to about $75 a month, according to council staff. The effect of the changes on people living in condominiums and apartment buildings would depend on the size of the meter, the number of ratepayers in the building and how the property owner allocates costs.
In addition to the $20 monthly increase to the “account maintenance fee,” Leggett’s plan recommends a 9.7 percent rate increase. The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission has suggested a number of funding methods to fix the infrastructure through a variety of rate increases or flat fees to fund repairs. The utility serves 1.8 million residents in the two counties and hopes to replace 34 miles of water main and 60 miles of sewer main during fiscal 2009.
Council members Nancy Floreen and Ervin refrained from giving the Transportation and Environment Committee’s endorsement to the plan, deciding to simply advance the changes backed by the county executive to the full council for consideration on Tuesday. Council member George Leventhal was absent from the meeting, as he recovers from injuries sustained in a car accident.
The WSSC is required by state law to give its proposed budget to the counties by March 1 of each year. Each county must approve amendments to the budget by June 1 before it can be adopted by the commission.
A public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Nov. 27.
