Water Officials to Seek Early Review of Maligned Rates

Prodded by San Fernando Valley lawmakers swamped by constituent complaints about skyrocketing summer water bills under a new fee schedule, Los Angeles city water officials will recommend to Mayor Richard Riordan that he reconvene a rate-setting citizens panel next month.

Jim Wickser, chief engineer for the Department of Water and Power’s water unit, said Thursday that the DWP’s management will recommend to Riordan that he reconvene a blue-ribbon citizens panel in early September, at least five months earlier than planned, and ask it to reconsider the water rate system it helped craft.

Wickser said the system “may need some fine-tuning,” although he warned that amending the rates to lower some customers’ bills would mean bigger bills for others.

The new rate system was adopted in December, 1992, but it has had its most dramatic impact on bills received this summer by some residential customers in the San Fernando Valley and the Westside.

The two-level rate system falls heaviest on those residents with bigger lawns who live in the city’s hottest regions--such as many Valley dwellers--and consequently use larger amounts of water.

Hundreds of customers are reporting bimonthly DWP bills in the $700 range, aides to Valley-based council members Laura Chick and Hal Bernson have reported, and some bills reach $900 or more. Sandy Clydesdale, a Bernson aide, said several weeks ago that complaints about the bills have been “horrendous.”

Originally, the panel, the Mayor’s Blue-Ribbon Committee on Water Rates, had not planned to take a second look at the impact of the new water rate system it helped create until February, when it would have been in effect for one year.

However, after vociferous complaints from Valley homeowners, Bernson and Chick authored a motion last month urging that the 16-member panel be reconvened earlier than originally planned.

The final decision as to whether the panel makes an early review of the rates is Riordan’s, however. The panel was established originally by former Mayor Tom Bradley, and its membership was set by him.

Thursday, Riordan’s office said that Deputy Mayor Mike Keeley is aware of the water rate controversy but that no decision has been made as yet.

Chick’s chief deputy, Karen Constine, said Thursday that DWP officials in a private meeting two weeks ago promised Chick that they were prepared to recommend that the blue-ribbon panel begin its review by early September. Getting the DWP’s professional staff to accept such an agreement was viewed as a victory in itself by Chick’s office.

But Wickser acknowledged Thursday that the DWP has not yet officially communicated its recommendation to Riordan’s office.

Wickser said the DWP’s willingness to accept an accelerated review of the rates stemmed from “a deference to the concerned council members.” But he warned that the panel may be unable to properly perform its review until later in the year. “Some of the more important data on usage of water may not be available for a few more months,” he said.

Meanwhile, an aide to one council member closely watching the situation expressed skepticism that reconvening the panel would suffice to bring relief to residential water users in the Valley.

The aide, who asked not to be identified, said her boss is now reviewing a series of recommendations on how the council could act now to lift the rate system’s “heavy burden on residential users.”

Ultimately, the rates are set by the council. However, last year, the lawmakers, except for Bernson and Councilman Joel Wachs, supported the rate system restructuring recommended by the mayor’s blue-ribbon panel.

The panel, its views shaped by years of drought, sought to use the rates to enforce water conservation. The new system has cheaper winter and more expensive summer rates, and each seasonal system is two-tiered, with a higher price that kicks in whenever water usage exceeds a specific amount.

In effect, the rate system penalizes any DWP customer who uses twice the median amount of water usage by billing them at the higher rate. In the summer, the median DWP customer uses 1,400 cubic feet of water a month. Customers who use less than 2,800 cubic feet per month pay $1.73 per cubic foot, while customers using more pay $2.98 per cubic foot.

Community activists predicted during the debate over the new system that it would affect the Valley disproportionately because the area is hotter and its larger lots with more landscaping require more watering. Also, thousands of homeowners live on hillsides that must be kept covered by trees, bushes and other vegetation or suffer catastrophic erosion damage during the winter rainy season.

Despite the department’s willingness to take a second look at the rates, Wickser said that, in general, the DWP believes the new system is “fundamentally fair.”

“But we’re also prepared to modify the system if there’s evidence that demonstrates that it is not fair,” he added. “It may need some fine-tuning.”

On the other hand, Wickser said. “if we change it so some pay less, then others are going to have to pay more.”