La Crescenta Agency Will Not Reduce Sewer Fees

Despite widespread protests from residents, directors of a La Crescenta water agency said this week that they will not lower a 138% increase in sewer fees imposed last fall.

Hundreds of residents had signed petitions and have protested at meetings since directors of the Crescenta Valley County Water District raised bimonthly sewer charges in September for single-family houses from $16.80 to $40.

But after months of study, directors have concluded that the flat per-household fee is the only acceptable solution to meeting rising costs.

In a statement issued Monday, Robert K. Argenio, district general manager, said: “Although nobody is happy about the current rate, the pay-as-we-go method approved by the board of directors some months ago still appears to be the most equitable and cost-effective way to raise the necessary money.”

Irate homeowners led by Marjorie Falloure, a 64-year-old disabled resident, have called for still another protest at 7:30 tonight at Crescenta Valley High School.

Falloure has threatened legal action against the water district.

District officials had approved the rate increase in July, saying the higher fees are necessary to pay the community’s estimated $8-million share of about $3.4 billion in improvements and additions to the Hyperion sewage treatment plant in Playa del Rey, where sewage from La Crescenta is processed.

State and federal authorities mandated changes at Hyperion years ago and gave the city of Los Angeles until 1998 to reduce the amount of pollution dumped into Santa Monica Bay.

The La Crescenta district, like all of the independent agencies and cities that use Hyperion, is being charged for a portion of the costs. Argenio has warned that the fees may increase still more.

Falloure and her followers had demanded that the district consider bond financing, state or federal grants, fees based on water usage, senior citizen discounts and low-income discounts to help lower the rates for residents who cannot afford the increase.

But district officials this week said all of those alternatives are too costly, unavailable, inequitable or unworkable.

Argenio said the study of funding options “has led us back to where we started.”