Valley May Be Hardest Hit by New Water Rates : Utilities: Under a proposed restructuring plan, a greater percentage of area residents will receive higher DWP bills than will customers elsewhere in L.A.

A major water rate restructuring plan could result in many San Fernando Valley homeowners paying higher water bills on average than single-family residents elsewhere in the city of Los Angeles, according to projections.

Those projections show that 29% of all the city’s residential water users will pay higher bills under a plan proposed two weeks ago by Mayor Tom Bradley’s Blue-Ribbon Committee on Water Rates.

But 69% of those receiving the bigger monthly bills would be Valley residential customers--although they make up 51% of the residential users, the committee’s own projections show.

“It sounds kind of disturbing to me,” Councilman Ernani Bernardi said. “The first impression it creates is: ‘Here we go again. Those folks on the other side of the mountains are pouring it on the Valley again.’ ”

Disproportionate numbers of Valley customers would be hit with higher bills because the proposed rate structure is governed entirely by water use, unlike the current system, said Norm Buehring, the assistant chief engineer for water at the city’s Department of Water and Power.

And Valley homeowners, with their larger lots that get thirstier in the hotter Valley summers, use more water than residents in other parts of the city, Buehring said.

Told of the projections, Councilman Joel Wachs, a veteran of numerous scraps with the city’s multibillion-dollar water agency, vowed to “fight to see that the Valley isn’t treated unfairly or disproportionately.”

One council aide, who asked for anonymity, said the proposed rate structure is actually unfair to all residential users because they overly subsidize the rates paid by commercial and industrial users.

Adjusting the system to make businesses pay more would reduce the rates for residential users, including those in the Valley, said the aide.

However, Betsy Reifsnider, a member of the blue-ribbon group, said one goal of the committee was to develop a system that requires “business to pay its fair share without screwing over industry just to make the residential customers happy, especially in this current economy.”

Reifsnider, who is also an official with the pro-environmental Mono Lake Committee, an independent group, said the rate make-over seeks to reward Department of Water and Power customers who conserve on water use.

The new rate system, Reifsnider said, is likely to become a model for other urban water agencies to adopt.

Councilwoman Joy Picus also said the rate restructuring is needed. “I regret its impact on the Valley,” she said, adding, however, that the revamp is needed to encourage a “change in our lifestyles” to reduce water consumption.

The city’s Water and Power Commission will hold a public hearing on the blue-ribbon panel’s recommendations at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Masonic Hall, 14750 Sherman Way, Van Nuys.

The panel was set up after the City Council last year squabbled for months with the DWP about its proposal to raise water rates to cover revenues it was losing as drought-conscious customers drastically cut their usage.

DWP staff supports the panel’s plan “in the main,” Buehring said.

DWP Commission President Michael Gage has said previously that he expects his panel to adopt the plan.

But final approval of the restructuring must come from the City Council. A special council committee is expected to begin its own review of the plan in September. Wachs sits on that committee.

Under the proposed water rate system, 100% of the bill would be based on water use compared to the existing rate structure in which only 85% is water-use related, Buehring said. The existing system has fixed costs, such as the $2.72-per-month service availability charge, an amount paid regardless of the amount of use.

The proposed rate system has two tiers. The first tier is the rate for residential customers who use 21 billing units of water or less. For these, the charge would be $1.71 per billing unit. Each unit is equal to 100 cubic feet of water or 748 gallons.

For customers who use more than 21 units, the rate would be $2.27 per billing unit in the winter months, $2.92 per unit in the summer months.

The average DWP customer uses 12 billing units per month. Valley customers on average use 16 units each month.