GLENDALE : City Cites Need for Water Rate Increase

Residents and businesses may soon find themselves paying an average of 7.7% more for water, but Glendale officials say a proposed increase in rates is needed to offset a coming hike in prices and to help pay for two projects aimed at increasing the water supply.

A water rate increase of about $3.01 per month for the average household would take effect this summer if approved by the council as part of the city’s 1995-96 budget. It would raise $1 million a year to pay for the city’s share of a federal Superfund program to clean up contaminated water wells along San Fernando Road and for expansion of the city’s reclaimed-water pipeline program.

In addition, $800,000 would go toward price hikes expected this year by the Metropolitan Water District, Glendale’s major supplier.

“The increase is driven by several factors,” said Bill Hall, acting director of the Public Service Department. “The MWD has told us they are going to be raising the price of water. There’s nothing we can do about that. Then there is the ground water cleanup, which is mandated by the EPA, and the reclaimed water program, which is entering the final phases of construction.”

The reclaimed water program, in which the city is building a pipeline network that reuses treated sewage water for irrigation at parks and along freeway landscaping, has a price tag of $16 million. City leaders say it will help eventually cut water bills by reducing Glendale’s use of expensive MWD water.

The city’s Water Department has been borrowing money interest-free for the past several years from the Electric Department to pay for the pipeline construction. But the proposed water rate increase would also be used to help the Water Department begin repaying that loan this year, officials said.

“With the deregulation of the electric utility industry and the competitive pressures on the Electric Department, we felt it was no longer feasible to have electric customers subsidizing water customers,” Hall said.

A decision on the rate hike is expected before the end of June.