Ventura Water Rates Expected to Rise 13% : Utilities: City officials say the increase over the next two years would fund new wells, a reservoir and improvements.

Water rates for Ventura residents are expected to increase more than 13% during the next two years, city officials said Wednesday.

A subcommittee of the Ventura City Council has recommended raising water rates 3.5% next fiscal year and another 9.75% the following year. The average residential household of four people now pays about $25 per month. Residents are billed every two months.

The council will make a final decision on the rates next month. If approved, the new rates would be effective in June.

“The days of cheap water are behind us,” Councilwoman Cathy Bean said in an interview before the meeting.

The three members of the utilities subcommittee are Bean, Councilman Jack Tingstrom and Councilman Tom Buford, chairman of the group.

City officials said the higher rates are needed to pay for drilling new wells, building a new reservoir and expanding a water treatment plant and pumping station. The city plans to issue certificates of participation for those projects in the fall.

“Things were kind of let go, and all this stuff needs to be done, and it wasn’t done over the years,” Bean said. “You have to keep up your infrastructure.”

Improvements at a pumping station would help elevate the quality of water in the city’s eastern end, said Pam Cosby, city utilities manager.

City officials said the proposed increases are also necessary because revenue has dropped as a result of more residents conserving water. About 99% of single-family residences use less than their water allotments, city officials said.

“Our revenue is less, so we have to increase everybody a little bit,” Cosby said.

Because higher-than-normal rainfall for two straight years has replenished ground-water basins and the Ventura River, the subcommittee also recommended that the rate structure be modified so that some water users would pay less.

Customers who use more than 17,952 gallons per billing period are charged higher rates. Under the proposed rate structure, customers would pay more if they use more than 31,416 gallons in two months. The average residential household uses 10,472 gallons a month.

Last year, Ventura officials raised water and sewer rates by 17%, making the city’s rates the highest in the county. City staff members are not recommending any sanitation rate increases this year.

Water customers Wednesday said they aren’t pleased about the prospect of paying more next fiscal year.

“With adequate supply, you would think that at the very least you would pay at the same level,” said Jerry Tononi, manager of the Doubletree Hotel, one of the city’s largest water users. “It shouldn’t continue to go up. I don’t know that the consumers have any choice but bite the bullet and pay the increase.”

Ken Strople, assistant executive director at Community Memorial Hospital, said the hospital has already done all it can to conserve water.

“We’ve installed water-saving devices,” Strople said. “They’ve just increased the cost of care. If a patient needs a shower, or a surgeon needs to wash his hands, so be it.”

Bruce McDowell, manager of the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant in Ventura, said he is not upset about the proposed increase.

“I think water has been too cheap in California for decades,” McDowell said. “This is a desert, and we should expect to pay more for water.”