Councilmen Call for Sewer Audit

Calling the city’s sewer bureaucracy out of control, Los Angeles City Councilmen Joel Wachs and Hal Bernson called for an independent audit of the city’s waste-water treatment system in an effort to reduce bills for property owners.

“We first started complaining about this system eight or nine years ago,” said Wachs at a news conference Tuesday. “Eight years later we still have a system that is out of control.”

Sewer officials responded that while they welcome an audit, they have reduced costs on their own by 30% over the last six years.

“We have no opposition to it,” said John Crosse, assistant director of the Bureau of Sanitation. “We can always learn something from a study like this.”

Crosse said the bureau’s goal is to reduce its $119-million annual maintenance and operations budget by an additional 15% in the next four years, and it does not expect to call for another rate hike until 2001.

Wachs and Bernson said they will introduce a motion next Tuesday asking the city to hire a consultant to analyze the waste-water administration and compare its performance to other public and private systems.

“We both believe it is time for this city to stop stonewalling . . . and assume some meaningful controls to make sure this system is being run as efficiently as possible,” Wachs said.

Bernson said he will also ask the council to consider changes to the sewer rate structure.

The northeast San Fernando Valley councilman supported an ordinance last year to revamp the rate structure. The change was expected to benefit Valley residents, but since the new system has gone into place Bernson and other council members say they continue to get complaints that costs are too high.

Sewer fees are currently assessed based on the amount of water that homeowners use during the winter months when, presumably, most of it is going down sinks and toilets into the sewer system, not into the lawn or the garden.

Sanitation officials have defended the system, saying it is both a fair estimate of sewer costs given that most homes don’t have sewer meters, and also a way to encourage water conservation.

Bernson, though, seeks an added break on sewer costs for owners of large lots.

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Owners of large lots who irrigate their properties during rainy months may find their sewer bills are running especially high this year because of the new rate system.

Wachs said he expects the type of audit he seeks to take about six months.

Although some cities have privatized their sewer systems to save costs for L.A., “the issue is not privatization, it’s looking to private industry and seeing what they do better and having a willingness to change our system to be as efficient as they are,” he said.

The City Council will consider the sewer proposals at a special meeting in Northridge at 10 a.m. Tuesday at St. Nicholas Grand Ballroom, 17037 Plummer St.