Council Votes Huge Fee Rise, Bond Issue for Sewer Renewal

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a steep increase in residential sewer service charges and placed a $1.5-billion bond measure on the November ballot to pay for repairs to the city’s aging sewer system.

The sewer fee increase, which will show up every other month in Department of Water and Power bills beginning in July, requires residents to pay an average of 23% more per year over each of the next five years.

The increase and the bond measure are needed, city financial analysts said, to raise a total of $3.4 billion to rebuild and modernize the city’s sewer system. Two years ago, city officials said they needed $2.3 billion to upgrade city sewers for the 1990s and beyond.

Plant Modernization

City engineers added nearly $400 million alone to the cost they predicted two years ago for modernizing the Hyperion treatment plant near El Segundo.

The latest spending plan was drafted after city engineers discovered that the sewer system is in worse shape than first believed, said Chief Administrative Officer Keith Comrie. The city’s oldest main sewer, built 80 years ago of brick, is crumbling and long stretches of newer concrete lines are deteriorating.

“You’ve got a sewer system that is broken,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, while imploring his colleagues to approve the rate hike and bond measure. “The growth of the city is outpacing the sewer system (expansion). We’ve got to do something.”

The council voted 11 to 2 to approve the rate increase and bond measure, with Councilmen Ernani Bernardi and Nate Holden opposed.

Industries that use the sewer system will be hit with an even larger fee increase. Businesses now pay $102 for every 100 gallons of water used at the peak of the day, and will pay $217 per 100 gallons in 1993.

Sharply Higher Cost

The average monthly residential sewer fee is $6.14 per month and will climb to $17.52 per month in 1993, the city says. This means the average annual fee will rise from $73.68 to $210.24 in five years.

“This is a . . . very stiff increase,” said Councilwoman Gloria Molina. “It’s probably irresponsible on our part (to adopt the rate increase).”

Molina called it disgraceful and criticized city officials for requesting the increase and bond measure without incorporating rate discounts for senior citizens and low-income residents.

“I don’t believe the garbage they are telling me about you can’t have a two-tiered system,” she said.

The council then approved a motion by Molina that instructs city officials to provide reduced lifeline rates beginning next year for low-income and senior residents.

If voters reject the bond issue, their monthly sewer fees will increase further to $27 per month, Comrie said. If the bond issue fails, the additional cost of financing improvements would reach $60 million, he said.

Molina noted that much of the fee increase and bond issue will be used to restore the current system. “It doesn’t deal with growth,” she said.

City Engineer Robert Horii said that only 10% of the $3.4 billion price tag is set aside for expanding the sewer system. The city is under federal court order to improve Hyperion so that by 1998 all effluent pumped into Santa Monica Bay meets secondary-treatment standards. The effluent now meets primary-treatment standards, which allow more contamination of the waste.

On Tuesday, the Board of Public Works awarded an $84-million contract to Gust K. Newberg Construction Co. of Los Angeles to relocate sewer lines and construct a new warehouse and parking structure at Hyperion. The contract is one of the largest granted in the board’s 82-year history.

The expansion planned for the Hyperion plant under the city’s 12-year Wastewater Capital Improvement Plan will lead to increased growth, development and air pollution, said William R. McCarley, the city’s chief legislative analyst.

Yaroslavsky on Tuesday called for an ad-hoc City Council committee on clean air issues to implement a variety of air pollution control measures.