SOUTH GATE : Sewer Fees Raised to Pay for Repairs

The cost of flushing just got higher.

After a recent series of street cave-ins forced officials to take a closer look at the city’s aging sewage system, the City Council voted unanimously last week to nearly double sewer rates, effective immediately.

The average household using 9,750 gallons of water will be charged $3.51 per month instead of $1.95 per month. A flat rate of $3.51 was also set for residents who have city sewers but are not served by city water.

“This addresses an immediate problem in the city on a short-term basis and it gives us time to look at a long-term solution,” said Councilman Bill Martinez, who served on a subcommittee created to study the repairs.

The 60-year-old sewage system began buckling in the 1970s, causing an average of one street collapse per year.

By 1982, the city set up a sewer fund to assist with some of the problems. “That’s when they found that 60% of pipes were actually deteriorated,” Public Works Director Jim Biery said.

The city videotaped pipelines and discovered heavy cracking. The same pipes were examined two years ago and “some of the pipes that were . . . cracked in the 1980s have disintegrated,” Biery said.

Within the last eight months, six streets have collapsed because of faulty pipes, which have not only inconvenienced residents with backed up toilets and smelly streets but have posed health risks from exposure to raw sewage.

The fee increase will cover the yearly costs of repairs and balance the $1-million sewer budget. The fund has been operating on a deficit of $540,000, which has been increasing by $40,000 per month, Biery said.

The increased rate will add $250,000 to the annual capital improvement program. It will also put another $315,000 into the sewer fund.

Of the city’s 127 miles of streets, 90 miles have underground concrete pipes. Officials estimate that with the new revenue it will take 40 years to rehabilitate the 40 miles of pipeline targeted for repair.

“I’m not happy with the solution that staff has given. This is something that has to be done in five to seven years not 40,” said Martinez, who added that the city is seeking federal money to speed up the process, which entails lining the concrete pipes with plastic tubes.

When the city installed its sewage system it chose to save money by using concrete pipes instead of the more expensive vitrified clay pipe, which is impervious to acid and gases.

But as the city’s concrete pipeline eroded, those cost-cutting measures went down the tubes.

Martinez said: “Now we have to pay for the mistakes of the past.”