Erie County water fees rise by 9%, second-highest level in decades - Buffalo News

Erie County water fees up by second-highest rate in decades

If you are a customer of the Erie County Water Authority, your water rates are going up next year.

The good news is that they aren’t going up by as big a percentage as last year, which represented the highest one-year increase in decades.

The bad news is that ECWA rates are going up by the second-highest percentage increase in decades.

Customers of the Erie County Water Authority will see their water rates and fees rise by 12% next year. Water authority officials blame the increase on major spikes in the prices of chemicals, power and contracts with third-party contractors.

Instead of water usage rates and fixed fees rising by 12%, they are rising by 9%. That applies to both residential and commercial customers.

By contrast, the Niagara Falls Water Board just announced that after two years of rising rates for costs passed onto customers, its rates for next year will remain flat.

The Erie County Water Authority is responsible for providing clean water to more than 550,000 users throughout most of Erie County, except for the City of Buffalo, which has a water rate that is even higher then the ECWA’s.

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Authority officials attributed the bulk of the increased costs to ongoing price hikes for chemicals and higher rates for outside contractors, plus ongoing commitment to upgrade the county’s water treatment and supply system. No additional jobs have been added as part of the ECWA’s $74.6 million operating budget, which is rising 8.9%.
Water Authority Chairman Jerome Schad.

“This is literally an inflation push on us,” Chairman Jerome Schad said. “When we crunched the numbers, we see it’s just that bad.”

Here are some answers to the most basic questions regarding the increased water costs.

Q: How much more will I pay?

The Water Authority states in its news release that the total increase would amount to an additional $30.40 per year for an average residential customer using 56,000 gallons.

In the past, the authority has used a much higher average annual gallons figure to determine median costs. Two years ago, it used a figure of 68,000 gallons. And prior to that, it used a figure of up to 84,000 gallons. Of course, the higher the average water usage figure, the bigger the average water bill looks.

But spokesman Brian A. Gould said the authority has done a lot of number crunching to more accurately determine the average water usage level, and for the past two years, the most accurate figure has been 56,000 gallons.

Using the same average figure, average residential water bills have risen by $102 over the past five years. Since 2012, when the authority first instituted a new combined system of water usage rates and fixed fees to determine customer water costs, average water bills have nearly doubled.

Consumers may not actually be paying twice as much for their water bill because high-efficiency, water-saving appliances have reduced household water usage over that time.

In terms of specific rate changes, residential water users – those with water lines of 1 inch or smaller – will see their water rates rise from $4.26 per 1,000 gallons to $4.64 per 1,000 gallons. The annual residential infrastructure charge, which is paid quarterly, will grow by $9.12 a year to $110.88.

Commercial customers, who pay a much heftier quarterly infrastructure fee but a lower usage rate, will also feel the same burden of a 9% increase across the board.

Q: Why are costs going up so much?

There are several reasons. First, the cost of chemicals to treat and clean water has risen dramatically, according to Chief Financial Officer Joyce Tomaka. The cost for chlorine, a disinfecting agent, has risen 349%. The cost of fluoride, used to keep teeth strong, has risen 92%.

The cost of caustic soda, used to neutralize water and deter pipe corrosion, has risen 278%. In dollar terms, this chemical used to cost $380 a ton, Tomaka said. Now it costs $1,436 a ton, and the Water Authority uses about 100 tons of it a month, she said.

Outside contractors, which do much of the authority’s infrastructure work, have also raised their prices, she said.

But not all the increased costs are related directly to obligatory operating needs. Water Authority leaders have also committed to a short-term and long-term timetable for making hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades in the county’s aging water system. That includes $56 million in upgrades for this coming year.

Quarterly infrastructure charges paid by customers help cover those costs. Schad said the leadership discussed “kicking the can down the road” to lower customer costs, but decided against it.

“Water is the most important commodity everyone needs or will need,” he said. “While this is hard, to me, this is a choice that has only one answer. We’ve got to do it.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state will invest $20 million in planned water infrastructure upgrades at the Erie County Water Authority that, she said, will help relieve some of the financial burden on its 500,000 commercial and residential customers.

In August, Gov. Kathy Hochul held a news conference to announce a $20 million grant to the authority as part of an $80 million package of projects in August. At the time, she said she expected that amount of money would help lighten the burden on residential and commercial customers.

But for 2024, the burden on customers remains heavy. Schad said that when the authority made the pitch to the state to provide the grant, the authority also said it would be a good partner with the state and still bear its fair share of the costs for physical water system improvements. That local share of costs contributes to the higher bill for rate payers.

Since 2010, the ECWA has taken an aggressive approach to maintaining and upgrading the authority’s aging plant and water delivery system, citing years of delayed maintenance and increasing emergency repairs.

When asked how long customers should be expected to absorb large, mounting expenses, Schad said he is hoping prices will stabilize so that the authority can maintain its ambitious timetable for upgrades.

“We may be forced to take another hard look at this and say the goals are too ambitious,” he said. “I had hoped we would have gotten stabilized by now, but we haven’t. If the pressures continue at these rates, we’ll have to do something.”

How do we compare to other places?

The Erie County Water Authority’s own comparison indicates that it charges more for water than the cities of Syracuse, Rochester and Niagara Falls, and more than Monroe County. But it charges less than Onondaga County and less than Buffalo.

Rivera on Tuesday sent a letter to Buffalo Water Board Chairman Oluwole A. McFoy inviting him to speak at a meeting of the Council's Community Development Committee on Jan. 31.

The Buffalo Water Board came under fire this year when The Buffalo News reported that fluoride had not been added to the city’s water supply since 2015.

The Niagara Falls Water Board said in its news release that while a fifth of its annual budget is “eaten up by the cost of chemicals,” the board said there were no major increases in its 2024 treatment chemical bid prices. Nagara Falls also actively managed overtime costs and brought more work in house to limit outside contractor costs, according to Michael Asklar, who chairs the NFWB’s Finance and Audit Committee. The 2024 budget also forecasts modest increases in interest earnings and revenue from industrial users.

Tomaka said that because Erie County covers a large swath of users, most of whom are not considered low income, the authority does not qualify for as many grants as other areas.