GwinnettViews

We posted several months ago about the increase in water bills that was coming: Watching-the-rain-fall-and-our-water-bills-rise. That was just on small increases to the monthly fees and not how bad it really is.

GDP Article by Jamie Ward: Water bills rise with new plan
Tiered pricing policies upset residents

The tiered pricing structure, which customers see on their bill as “Summer Surcharge Tier 1″ or “Summer Surcharge Tier 2,” has one goal in mind, Gwinnett Water Resources Department spokeswoman Lynn Smarr said: conservation.
“The goal of conservation pricing is to reduce excess discretionary water use, such as outdoor irrigation, by making water use increasingly more expensive,” Smarr said. “Conservation pricing encourages smart water use and helps protect our natural resources, all the time and not just during drought conditions.”

Confused? Following that? Us either. It wasn’t enough that during the drought that the residents of the county cut their consumption by almost 20% all on their own but now with the drought over the Water Lords feel they need to charge us into smarter ways?

Smarr said for summer surcharges to appear on a customer’s bill, the user must exceed two boundaries. First, for tier 1, they must exceed 10,000 gallons in the billing period and must have exceeded their winter average use by 125 percent.

Smarr said typical residential usage is about 6,000 to 7,000 gallons per month.

Once summer usage exceeds 200 percent of the winter average, the price structure advances to tier 2.

The rate applied to each tier to calculate the additional summer surcharge gradually increases, too. In tier 1, 97 cents is the rate used. In tier 2, the rate jumps to $3.86.

Effective Jan. 1, a three-tiered approach will also be implemented in addition to the increase for the “volumetric charge” for each 1,000 gallons of water that passes through a water meter. The current charge is $3.86. On Jan. 1 the increase rises to $4.11. Then to compute the third tier of pricing for usage that will exceed 12,000 gallons per month, the rate used will be equal to twice that of the volumetric rate – $8.22.

That is just astronomical jumps in prices. People will be hurt by this financially and most don’t even understand it is going on. People be careful. Know that this can affect you. The need for revenue by these entities will make them think any plan is a good one.

“Our approach to managing revenues and our water resources is a tiered rate structure that will encourage conservation during peak months and during the highest demand period,” she said. “As a public utility, we are required to generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining, which means we have to generate enough revenue to maintain our infrastructure and to provide a level of service that optimizes value and cost.”