City Council approved San Antonio Water System’s requested rate increases Thursday but directed the utility to improve access to discounts, help residents who receive inexplicably high monthly bills and continue conserving water.
Council members grilled SAWS President and CEO Robert Puente ahead of their unanimous vote on the new rates that will fund several water and sewer projects, including the controversial Vista Ridge pipeline that would deliver up to 16.3 billion gallons a year from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer below Burleson County, 142 miles away.
The added revenue will also fund a plant now under construction to desalinate salty groundwater below South Bexar County, sewer improvements required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and smaller pipelines to provide water to the city’s military bases.
The vote means SAWS customers will see an increase in sewer and water delivery fees startingJan. 1, but the approval also set in place yearly increases to the water supply fee that could add up to nearly 21 percent by 2020.
As a result, SAWS estimates the average residential customer’s monthly water and sewer billcould rise 50 percent by 2020 from $54.34 to $81.73, based on 7,092 gallons of water used.
District 1 Councilman Roberto Treviño said council should continue monitoring the effect of the rates on customers who can least afford the increases. He secured a commitment from Puente to hold update meetings every six months, the first in June.
District 4 Councilman Rey Saldaña spent half an hour asking Puente questions about water conservation, the availability of groundwater in Burleson County and what SAWS is doing for residents who have been seeing high bills because of leaks or meter errors.
Puente told him SAWS’ conservation measures have reduced demand so as to eliminate the need for at least three Vista Ridge projects since the 1980s, even as the city has grown.
Though Puente said SAWS considers conservation not a “tree-hugging measure” but an actual water supply, Saldana credited groups like the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, Fuerza Unida, the Southwest Workers Union and Alamo Sierra Club for pushing conservation over the years in their opposition to various water supply projects.
“Those are all things that don’t come without the other end of the table applying pressure,” he said.
Puente also told him that SAWS is using computer programs to track extraordinarily high bills so the staff can notify customers.
On conservation, District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg suggested amending city ordinances to make Stage 1 drought restrictions permanent. He also pushed for an updated water plan from SAWS.
He and Puente agreed that SAWS needs to make sure video and supporting documents for all SAWS board meetings are posted online.
Nirenberg also suggested meeting with SAWS and Abengoa, the Spanish company that would build the pipeline, to consider creating a fund to assist residents near the project’s well field who fear pumping so much water for the pipeline will mean they have to lower their well pumps at their own expense.
For District 3 Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran, the vote was about funding much-needed repairs, like a sewer line in her home neighborhood on the South Side. She also stressed the need to pay for water projects today before they become more expensive in the future.
“I cannot ignore my responsibility to my constituents and to the children of our community who will be left holding the bill if we kick this issue down the road,” she said.
District 5 Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales asked several questions about affordability and bill errors. She spoke about a family in her district who recently received a monthly bill of $450.
SAWS CFO Doug Evanson explained that the software used to track errors flags those bills that reach 600 percent of average use.
“I’m afraid that benchmark is too high,” Gonzales said.
The vote followed four hours of comments by city and SAWS staff and residents.
Several members of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce spoke in favor of the rate increases and the pipeline.
Hispanic Chamber president Ramiro Cavazos said his group’s members had visited the Spain headquarters of Abengoa three times. They are convinced the project is a sound one, he said.
“It makes good sense to bring water from water-rich East Texas to water-poor south-central Texas,” he said.
Social justice and environmental groups have packed public hearings in the weeks leading up to the vote to protest the pipeline and rate increases, which they say place an unfair burden on poor ratepayers.
“They wonder why our community doesn’t vote and this is a perfectly good reason,” said Graciela Sanchez, Esperanza’s director. “We’re the ones talking to the community. We’re the ones representing them …because they can’t be here. But we don’t have to go to council because nobody pays attention to us anyway.”
SAWS’ rates have climbed nearly every year for residential and large-scale users since 2006, utility records show.
Before the vote, District 10 Councilman Mike Gallagher said the city “can’t wait for a crisis to make a decision. Think about what those costs would be to each and every one of us.”
District 6 Councilman Ray Lopez, away on a trade trip to Japan, was the only one not present for the vote.
bgibbons@express-news.net
Twitter: @bgibbs
No comments:
Post a Comment