Before 2011, if Whittier residents didn’t use much water, their bills were likely to be teeny-tiny, sometimes not much more than the $2-a-month service fee.
Those pre-drought days are over. A homeowner now with the smallest meter available, 3/4-inch, pays a $40.25 service fee plus the cost for water.
The skyrocketing leap has some residents angry. They’re collecting petitions — they have about 550 so far — calling for a reduction in the service fee, sometimes called the meter fee, and they’re showing up at City Council meetings, demanding the same.
“I’m most unhappy about the service rate,” said Tony Babyan, who has lived in the city since 2010. “I try to cut down on water and it doesn’t matter what I do because the service rate is so high.”
The city’s service fee is the highest among surrounding cities, according to a survey conducted by the Whittier Daily News.
However, its commodity rate of $1.99 per 100 cubic feet of water also is among the lowest. Still, a typical customer using 1,200 cubic feet of water receives among the highest bills in the vicinity. For consumers using more water in a month, the rates are likely to be more competitive.
The fact that water rates are relatively low doesn’t satisfy Helen Ayala, a resident of Whittier off and on since 1959, who is leading the petition drive.
“We want the water meter fee reduced and the (commodity rate) increased to make up for it,” Ayala said.
“You have residents who have redone their landscaping and it takes very little water, but they still have that high water meter charge,” she said.
“People who are doing a good job of conserving are being hit by a higher fee,” Ayala said. “The current water meter charge is unfair.”
City officials say they raised the service fee so much because it wasn’t covering the city’s cost to deliver water.
“Regardless of how much water somebody uses — whether they use 1 gallon or (a lot) — you still have the cost of the system to deliver the water to somebody,” Whittier City Manager Jeff Collier said.
“You need pumping plants, transmission lines, meters, and reservoirs,” Collier said. “You may put some of that cost on the commodity charge. (But) we went through an earlier drought and we didn’t have sufficient revenue to pay for some of those costs.”
In addition, Whittier raised its fees to to pay for improvements to the system, Mayor Joe Vinatieri said.
In 2015, the plan was to raise $269 million throughout the next 40 years. In the last two years, Whittier has spent more than $23 million replacing about 29,000 feet of water lines and constructing a new pumping plant.
Those numbers don’t include the $1.5 million project to replace two 90-year-old water lines on and near Norwalk Boulevard that have broken several times in the last five years — one line had two breaks on Christmas 2016 — now under way.
Whittier still has 138 miles of pipeline that need replacement and about $200 million in projects not started, according to its website.
“We don’t want water geysers (from broken lines) in Whittier like on Sunset Boulevard or Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles where they haven’t kept up their maintenance or infrastructure,” Vinatieri said.
Still, Vinatieri, who voted against the last fee increase in 2015 on the basis that it was too high, said it’s time to re-examine the fees. The city has commissioned a rate study expected to be completed by year’s end.
Councilman Henry Bouchot is concerned about the rate, he said.
“I think there are people who are doing their best to conserve water and struggling to pay our increased fees,” Bouchot said. “We need to find a solution to incentivize people who want to do the right thing by the environment and conserving water, try to keep their costs down and at the same time ensure we are responsible about infrastructure.”
Tom Connors, a Whittier resident since 1947, is just looking for some help.
“My wife and I are on fixed incomes,” Connors said. “The fee is a burden to us. I don’t have a lawn. I feel like we’re being gouged. If I’m using less water, I should pay less.”
