Huntington Beach residents are in for a 55% increase on their water and sewer bill over the next five years, a smaller jump than city leaders initially pitched after hundreds of residents sent in complaint letters about price hikes.
The new rate approved by city council members on a 5-2 vote is a big drop from the originally planned 74% increase across both those bills as city staff warned that without major investments, the city’s wells and other infrastructure could soon collapse.
Surf City officials echoed what water agencies and cities throughout Orange County have been grappling with in recent years.
Aging systems.
“First and foremost, we have a problem,” said Deputy Director of Public Works Alvin Papa on Tuesday night. “That problem is that our infrastructure is old.”
Most of the new money is slated for building new wells for drinking water, with Papa noting most of the city’s existing wells were over 50 years old and beginning to run dry or break down, along with new equipment for sewer lift stations to avoid any sewage spills.
While the new plan would cover most of the projects city staff wanted to move forward with, the reduced rate hike meant they had to delay about a quarter of the proposed infrastructure projects according to Papa, who noted that could mean more infrastructure failures over the next few years.
“This option is not without risk. By deferring some of these projects, we’re expecting them to last a little bit longer,” Papa said. “We think we can get more years out of our system.”
Councilmembers Pat Burns and Rhonda Bolton were the only two votes against the proposed increase, each citing different reasons for their votes.
Burns wanted to push ahead with the original plan for a larger rate hike and more infrastructure built.
“If Israel waited until they were attacked to start building a defense system, they’d be in deep caca right now,” Burns said. “Spending now saves a lot of money and problems in the future and it secures the service we need.”
Bolton said the new rates could negatively impact low-income residents and seniors, adding that she wasn’t satisfied with the plans in place to help people with their water bills.
“Without a more definitive plan on how we can protect vulnerable residents, I really don’t support the lower capital improvement project proposal,” Bolton said.
Water rate hikes have been confronted by multiple cities and water boards throughout the county in recent months, with local leaders arguing they need more money to deal with inflation and a rapidly aging infrastructure to ensure nothing breaks down.
[Read: Some South OC Residents’ Water Rates Double]
The city council received over 727 written protests from homeowners, or about 1.4% of the city’s overall property owners, with many saying they were already having to pay more for everything else.
“Everyone knows the economy is softening,” said resident Greg Wood. “We’re getting squeezed from everywhere…that adds up.”
But other residents felt differently, saying they’d rather pay more for water than have it not show up at all.
“There’s nothing that compares to clean water,” said resident Bethany Webb. “Clean water is essential.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
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