Why Water Rates Must Go Up : Even with conservation, L.A. requires a delivery system that needs constant improvement

Maintaining the Los Angeles water system won’t be easy this year and next but it may be barely possible.

The City Council, which came unglued last week over a proposed rate increase of only about one-third of what the Department of Water and Power needs, has had a change of heart.

It is prepared to take another look at the small boost--if the department agrees to reshuffle its rate tables, charging big and inefficient water users more for the service and small, efficient users less.

No trouble at all, said the department. At DWP’s request, Mayor Tom Bradley appointed a committee last year to write a new rate structure. Its report is due in September.

If the council follows through this week, the department will get about a third of the money it needed for construction and maintenance. It can stay afloat on that amount, but it can’t move far in any direction to fend off the ravages of old age in its delivery system.

As for the City Council, it can brag about seeming to save money for ratepayers as long as the system’s ancient pipelines hold together. How long that will be, nobody knows.

From the beginning, a majority of the council ran for cover from the very concept of an increase in rates, even though in practice the average household water bill would have gone down slightly.

The problem for both the council and the department was the drought.

Because water supplies throughout California were low, the department had to impose mandatory cuts in water use. As customers responded to the call for conservation beyond the department’s wildest forecasts, water consumption dropped 30% and revenue went down with it.

For the council, the idea that customers would be rewarded for their efforts with a rate increase was a piece of political dynamite they refused even to think about, though the average bill would have dropped.

Only when it looked as if hundreds of DWP workers might be laid off unless there was an increase did the council come close to hiking rates. That happened last week when the council deadlocked on the matter.

With Bradley and Council President John Ferraro lobbying for a second chance, the council agreed Wednesday to look at an ordinance that would expire in a year and require the new rate structure.

That’s not much of a start, but it’s something.