Many Septic Users Paying Sewer Fees : Claims: A legal group is acting on behalf of 8 Pacoima residents who unwittingly may have paid hundreds of dollars for a service they do not receive.

Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of mostly low-income Los Angeles residents whose homes are connected to septic tanks have been paying hundreds of dollars annually in sewer fees for as long as 12 years because they are unaware that they must first ask the city to stop billing them.

The residents, many of them immigrants who speak little or no English, apparently have not noticed or do not understand annual English-only water bill inserts explaining how to get exempted from sewer fees, city officials acknowledge. Otherwise, the fees--averaging $10.43 per month for a single-family dwelling--are billed to water customers automatically.

Even if an exemption is granted, the city will refund charges only for the year preceding the date it was requested, officials said. Thus, a septic tank user who has been unwittingly paying the fees since Los Angeles began assessing them to residential customers in 1978 could have forfeited hundreds of dollars.

“It’s like the city is robbing me--just like in Mexico,” said Pedro Velasquez, a Pacoima gardener who estimates he has paid about $600 in sewer fees since buying his home in 1985. He learned in January that he was entitled to an exemption.

On Friday, lawyers with San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services Inc. filed a claim with the city on behalf of Velasquez and seven other Pacoima residents seeking reimbursement for unwarranted sewer fees. The claimant who has paid the fees the longest, Robert Alvarez, bought his home on Brownell Street in 1981 and has never been hooked up to the sewer.

The problem arises because the city charges the sewer fees to water customers based on the amount of water consumed, on the theory that a portion of the water ends up in the sewage system.

But city officials said they do not know which water customers also are connected to the sewer system because parcel maps showing sewer connections are often outdated or inaccurate, said Fred Hoeptner, a senior civil engineer with the Los Angeles Department of Public Works waste water management division.

The city would have to send inspectors to each of the 733,380 parcels in Los Angeles to determine which ones are on the sewer system, he said. Until such a count is made, the city will continue to bill septic tank users for sewer service unless they seek an exemption, he said.

“It could be done if the personnel resources were available,” Hoeptner said. “It’s probably unfeasible to catch every single one, but you could get a large number of them.”

Department of Public Works officials estimate that there are 590,000 sewer hookups, and estimate that 3% of the city’s residents live in dwellings served by septic tanks.

Fred Nakamura, the attorney who filed the claim with the city, said he was told by city officials that 10,000 San Fernando Valley residents have requested exemptions since 1978. He said 40 to 50 new requests for exemptions are submitted to the city each month--from the Valley alone, which has the largest concentration of septic tanks in the city.

Many low-income renters who pay their own water bills might not know whether the property has a septic tank or sewer service and are continuing to pay the fees, he said.

“The city shouldn’t rely on people claiming exemptions,” Nakamura said. “They shouldn’t bill in the first place. If any private business were doing this, the city attorney’s office would probably prosecute them.”

“I guess they figured it would be easier to bill everybody,” Nakamura said. “The city actually makes money this way.”

Neither Nakamura nor city officials could estimate how much sewer fee money the city has collected from septic tank users. They also said they could not estimate how many would qualify for the exemptions but have not asked for them.

The claim submitted on behalf of the eight Pacoima residents, who live along a stretch of Brownell Street that has no sewer access, says the current billing system violates California unfair business practice laws and other state laws.

Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents the northeast Valley, said he agrees that the billing system should be changed.

“I thought it was wrong from the start,” Bernardi said. “I didn’t think people that were connected to septic tanks should be charged that fee. I think administratively it’s easier, but whether it’s fair or not is another question.”

The residents intend to sue the city if the claim is denied, a result that Nakamura said is likely.

Nakamura said the lawsuit would contend that the city intentionally misled customers and that the plaintiffs were falsely led to believe the fee was appropriate because public agencies are expected to obey the law.

The claim filed Friday grew out of an unsuccessful effort by Brownell Street resident Esteban Gallardo, 46, to obtain a sewer fee exemption. According to Gallardo, the Department of Water and Power threatened to cut off water to his house, which he has rented since 1986, if he refused to pay the fee.

Last December, Gallardo mentioned the problem to neighbor Graciela Lopez, who advised him to contact the legal aid organization.

After Nakamura and other legal aid attorneys heard Gallardo’s story, they knocked on doors in the man’s neighborhood to see if others had the same problem.

Like Gallardo, who is unemployed and on welfare, many of the claimants are poor and speak little or no English. Many of them rent the small, ranch-style houses whose loosely tended front yards are marked by square, wood septic tank lids.

Bernardi said he believes many residents in his district still use septic tanks because of favorable soil conditions.

“I’m sure if there are eight people that filed, there are many, many more in that area” who use septic tanks and who are paying the sewer fees, he said. “The cesspools work in the sandy soil there.” Nakamura said the city has not tried hard enough to solve the problem. He said city officials are taking advantage of poor people and Spanish-speaking residents who might not read or understand the fine points of their bimonthly water bill.

Los Angeles Deputy City Atty. John Haggerty, who represents the Department of Public Works, denied that the city has violated any laws. He agreed with Hoeptner that identifying all septic tank users is impractical, and said the city code clearly states that residents may only seek a year’s worth of damages when making claims.

But for the residents of Brownell Avenue who are seeking refunds, there was nothing proper about the way their money ended up in city coffers.

“We didn’t know until January” that the sewer fees were not required, said Margarita Velasquez, 17, Pedro Velasquez’s daughter. “We were very upset. They were charging us for something we didn’t have.”