STPUD working out water rates for metered customers
By Kathryn Reed
For the nearly 5,500 South Tahoe Public Utility District customers who have water meters, their rates for this quarter are not going to be what they are used to.
This is because of state mandates. California has required water districts with more than 3,000 connections have their jurisdictions all metered by 2025. STPUD has required all new construction since 1992 to be metered, but did not have a different billing structure.
Districts had to start reading the meters in 2010, with billing to begin no later than 2011.
Water meters are installed in South Lake Tahoe in 2010. Photo/Kathryn Reed
“The state requirement is anyone with a meter now has to be billed volumetrically,” Dennis Cocking, spokesman for STPUD, told Lake Tahoe News.
The district’s board of directors had a workshop last week about what the rate structure would look like. Board member Mary Lou Mosbacher was absent.
Shawn Koorn and Kevin Lorentzen of HDR Engineering Inc. out of Washington spent 90 minutes giving the board information. They will likely be back before the board in a month when adoption of the rate structure will be voted on.
“I usually go with a higher fixed, then a lower consumption as a transition,” Koorn told the board.
With more than 80 percent of the costs involved with water being fixed, that leaves the rest based on consumption. As it is now, all STPUD customers have the same quarterly bill. It’s the bills sent out April 1 that will be different for those with meters.
Each structure that is built from now on will be billed partially on consumption. The district has no grant money to put in more meters this coming building season. About 3,000 were installed last year.
It costs about $1,300 to put in a meter in Lake Tahoe because not being able to move dir year-round, having to put them about 3-feet deep in a vault to deal with freezing, and the granite soil.
The state’s theory when the legislation was passed is meters will help people conserve water. What the consultants have found with other districts is water usage drops initially because people want smaller bills, but over time they use what they want and pay the consequences.
One consideration the South Tahoe PUD board has to consider is being able to bring in the same revenue it has been in order to pay bills and be within budget.
The goal is for people to have relatively the same bill if they are average water consumers. It’s the people who irrigate heavily who will undoubtedly see higher water bills in the future.
2025 is a long way away and then they may have a another way to measure water use. Stpud has apx. 12500 water customers so having 5500 with meters, they could put in the other 7000 meters in less than three years. They should not force people to put in meters until 2022 if its even needed then. Indoor use is easy to measure, because of no outside water use for apx, 5 mo. the base charge should be that amount. One other issue is stpud is required to supply a min. amount of water to the carson river watershead or they have to buy water to replace it, it’s federal law.
When we got our permit to build we had to pay for the water meter. Before, when we lived down in Pollock Pines, we had to buy our water meters too. So why does STPUD need grants to put in water meters for existing customers? Or are they charging metered customers extra to cover the cost of installing meters to currently unmetered houses? And will we who have meters now be paying the same flat rate as non metered PLUS our usage? I swear, STPUD does not operate like water districts elsewhere. Maybe because once it’s ALL metered, they’re going to be really unhappy with all the houses that don’t use ANY water 90% of the time because nobody lives in them!
“What the consultants have found with other districts is water usage drops initially because people want smaller bills, but over time they use what they want and pay the consequences.”
Sounds like wasteful work to me, it’s not conserving anything, just making more money.
Sometimes I think they need to spend a little more time, and do a test run, or something! Before implementing a statewide mandatory program that does not do, what it was designed to do.
And as Dogwoman brought up, our water company will lose lots of money due to 2nd home ownership, or are they going to charge us both ways (metered & set rates) forever?
I think its time for everyone to start attending water board meetings or start reading the laws concerning the water meters in order to get a clear picture of what has to be done, when, and why.
The way the water district will recover the loss of income by 2nd home owners is to have a base rate and charge a lot more for those that go over. These extra usage charges will balance out the lower usage.
Its great they got grants for the meters…or else we’d all have to be paying the $1300 to get them installed! I googled new water meter additions in other towns and we’re going to benefit greatly by the grants. The consumers are the ones that have to pay for water meters, not the district, so be thankful.
State Law (AB2572) requires meters in all pre 1992 homes by 2025. All new construction since then had to have the meters installed I believe. Calif law states that all buildings with those meters must be billed accordingly staring in Jan 2010. The rest of us in older homes will start getting meters. Since we only have a 5 month period to install due to grading rules and weather it will take a long time to get the 1000s of home fitted between now and 2025.
I learned a lot by going to a presentation..lessened some of my confusion.
Been so long since the city and agencies have done one damn thing that makes sense.
We were definitely better off in the 70’s,no question about that.
lol Now folks want to get involved with the meters. Where were the voters when we had a chance to elect new blood into stpud, instead the voters voted in the same ole same ole. We got what we deserved. Our water rates will double to compensate for the 2cd homeowners. Is it legal for them to charge metered rates when most are not? No one knows as this is unchartered territory and even stpud has no idea but must do so anyway as this is state mandated. There has got to be a Lawyer somewhere who is willing to tackle this as a class action, of course there must be a payoff.
The story refers to the STATE MANDATE requiring the meters. This was not a decision made by STPUD. The mandate comes with a lot of requirements and no funding for fulfillment. Check with STPUD about the profit and loss of installing meters and charging for usage; they’ll know how long it will take them to break even.
How nice-we rebuilt in the angora burn area-paid up front several hundred bucks (plus installation) for a water meter-now they are giving and installing them with grant money. The best part is that the meter started spinning jan 1st! most of us are still planting and trying to landscape-I could use help getting our point across.
The water not used (thats the idea) has no place else to go, especially SoCal, which was the idea to send more of NorCal water south so they can have even more people survive there. Who needs enemies with friends like we have in Sacramento. The insanity continues.
BTW, STPUD has previously stated and published the new rates, though not by ordinance.
Believe it or not, I am a full time resident and my water bill will be going DOWN by $35 per month once our billing is adjusted. For those of us who already conserve water because we care about the environment or those of us with 1-2 family members, this is a good change. What bothers me is that I still have to pay over $200 for this quarter when I’ve had a water meter since August and my consumption figure is so low that I should have already been paying less. How is that justified?
I agree with the 30 year local who recommends we all start attending water board meetings. Kae, could send out a reminder on your web site the day before the meetings?
And while attending the meetings, take a look around at the beautiful office building STPUD built. And ask some of the employees what kind of extra benefits and salary structure they have. I believe there is a lot of wasted spending at this plant.
I’m personally for the meters and being accountable for wasting water. Most of the second homes (and even full-timers) in my neighborhood water once or twice a day during the summer, so they will finally be billed for their wasteful watering.
We got those water meters in our neighborhood and also got our usage metered (but not billed as such yet) on the last billing cycle. According to the metered calculations, our bill will increase to about $520.00 a quarter from the flat rate we all used to pay because we live here year round and do use water daily. It does not seem fair to have to pay so much more than households who will not be getting meters installed anytime soon because the grants ran out. If our home was a 2nd, rarely used vacation house we would likely be pleased with this arrangement, but once again, the year round resident gets the shaft in Tahoe.
Perfect…STPUD
40% of the cost to deliver water comes from storage cost for fire protection and other things related, why don’t people on wells pay their fair share of this cost?