Rising Stormwater Bills Are Driven By Drain Costs

HIGH COST of rebuilding Phila.’s aging stormwater system is sending rate-payers’ dollars down the drain.

BY JOE SHAHEELI/ Neither the Feds nor state regulators give a damn about the high water fees Philadelphia businesses are being told they now have to pay. While the City’s Water Dept. is taking public abuse for the major increase, it didn’t initiate the stormwater runoff fees now being charged.

The stormwater regulations at the state and federal level are the culprit. Those folks demand the City make improvements to cope with stormwater runoff volume and quality since the EPA now identifies it as the number-one pollution source to rivers and streams nationally.

The City now must invest hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade to better manage combined sewer overflows and stormwater impacts.

Absolving the regulators have been the record-setting rains falling on this city. Just in July, it was deluged by over 7 of rain.

Flooding from unusually heavy rains has created problems for the City’s sewage systems. In order to avoid floods hitting city neighborhoods, the Water Dept. must now speed up extensive sewer construction there.

For now the City must deal with the legacy of too little onsite stormwater management, undersized sewers and combined-sewer overflows.

The Water Dept. reports it convened a Citizens Advisory Group to make a recommendation to the City about more-equitable stormwater charges. The CAC included representatives of large and small businesses, universities, parking lots, transportation utilities, civic groups, senior citizens, realtors and water only customers.

One recommendation was to change the overall allocation of stormwater costs between smaller mostly residential accounts and larger commercial/industrial accounts. The Department revealed a change was made in the tariff that resulted in lower costs for smaller accounts. Other recommendations for improving the cost allocation were not implemented because of technology limitations.

By 2010, the Water Dept. had the information systems necessary to develop a more-equitable program and designed a new stormwater fee consistent with the principles recommended by the CAC.
Through many years, the Water Dept. has recovered the costs for the operation and maintenance of its stormwater system components (pipes, storm drains, pump stations including a Pontoon Pump Station, treatment facilities, and billing) through a service charge related to its customers water-meter size.

The CAC also recognized that providing a detailed analysis of each of the City’s 450,000 residential properties would be expensive and not provide a significant improvement in the fairness of cost allocation. The City’s residential properties should be treated as a single parcel with total gross-area and imperviousness-area factors. The total costs would be divided among all residences. This suggestion was implemented in the FY 2002 tariff and resulted in a decrease in the allocation of costs to residences and other smaller meter customers.

The Water Dept. reports at the time FY 2002 rates were being developed, the City did not have accurate or adequate parcel information to reallocate stormwater costs among the larger customers on a parcel basis. Accordingly, the meter-based charge was maintained to distribute the stormwater-related costs among larger customers. In early 2006, the Water Dept. began the process of validating the City’s parcel data with the Bureau of Revisions and Taxes database and orthographic (impervious) information. Water Dept. staff analyzes the approximately 70,000 non-residential accounts to determine, on an individual customer basis, the stormwater runoff contribution of each large customer parcel, in order to apply the 80/20 impervious/gross area formula.

The Water Dept. reallocated the stormwater fee structure among its large-meter non-residential customer base over a four-year period beginning in FY 2010. This phase-in was completed on Jul. 1, 2013. This reallocation results in more-equitable stormwater charges that closely match the cost of managing stormwater runoff from each property.
Current calculations show the majority of large-meter customers will see a reduction or otherwise minor impact on the stormwater component of their water and sewer bills. For those customers seeing noticeable increases in their stormwater fees, the department will identify opportunities on their property to decrease the amount of their impervious area and thus decrease their stormwater fees.

Commissioner Howard Neukrug, a veteran of 30 years service with his department, said, The Water Dept. also charges properties that do not have a water/sewer account. These parcels generate stormwater runoff managed by the City and therefore should be reasonably charged for such service. These current non-customers include parking lots, utility right of ways and vacant land. Current large-meter customers have recognized this discrepancy, and in prior rate hearings have demanded that we charge parcels, such as parking lots, to share the burden of stormwater management.

He continued, PWD is very sensitive to the needs of our customers, especially those that are realizing significant increases in their costs of stormwater service. We initiated a number of actions and programs, including: phasing in the new fees over a four-year period to lessen the immediate burden on customers budgets; initiating a commercial-customer service unit which acts as a one-stop liaison for our commercial/condominium customers in all billing and operational matters; instituting a credit program to recognize parcel-based customers that have undertaken stormwater management activities and/or have landscaping in-place that reduces stormwater runoff.

The Commissioner noted the Water Dept. has funded $500,000 annually since 2009 to provide impacted customers with free engineering consulting services to provide a concept design and an estimated cost of construction for property stormwater management systems that will provide the property with a substantial credit to their stormwater fee.

Also developed is a Stormwater Assistance Program for customers that will see more than a 10% and $100 increase from one fiscal year to the next that caps this increase at 10 percent in total. Currently, 1,700 customers are eligible for this program.

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