That tall glass of water can carry a vastly different price tag depending on where you live, according to a Tribune-Review analysis of water prices throughout the region.
The examination of prices charged by 24 water providers in the Alle-Kiski Valley and across the region revealed customers paying quarterly rates of $62.25 to $192.06 for 12,000 gallons of water — the average amount billed to customers every three months in the surveyed area.
Although many customers in the Alle-Kiski Valley receive their water from the same place — the Allegheny River — prices vary from town to town, even when they are only miles apart.
For instance, records show Brackenridge residents pay $112.12, Tarentum residents $109.39 and Harrison residents $90.84. The communities are within 2½ miles of each other.
Just down the road, the East Deer Township Water Department, which also receives its water from the Allegheny River, charges $106.80 for the same amount.
The inconsistencies don’t stop there.
Harmar and Springdale Township, both drawing water from wells, differ on pricing. Harmar residents pay $129 per quarter for 12,000 gallons of water; Springdale Township residents pay $84.
Experts point to various reasons:
• Rates are regulated by local municipalities’ councils or authorities without oversight from state or federal agencies.
• Costs vary with maintenance and improvements to the region’s aging water treatment facilities.
• Costs associated with salaries and benefits to hire and retain employees continue to escalate.
• Many authorities are hesitant to consolidate into larger organizations that can function more efficiently as single entities and avoid duplication of efforts.
Not unusual
Having different prices for water sourced from the same well, lake, river or reservoir is not uncommon in Western Pennsylvania, even when water providers are in close proximity, experts said.
It’s what happens to the water after it leaves the source that determines its price, they said.
Investments to maintain and upgrade treatment facilities and distribution networks play a role in water costs, said Carnegie Mellon University President Emeritus Jared Cohon.
The high number of water providers also plays a role, said Cohon, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. He said Western Pennsylvania is “probably the most fragmented region in the country” in terms of water providers.
“If we’re not the most fragmented, we’re certainly among the most,” he said. “It’s incredibly not efficient, to say the least.”
Still, water is cheaper here than in other parts of the country. According to the 2019 American Housing Survey conducted by the Census Bureau, the average national water bill is $61 per month, or $183 per quarter.
Local officials explain
Officials in Tarentum, Brackenridge and Harrison explained why water has a different price in each town.
The Tarentum Water Department services about 4,700 customers, similar to the Harrison Township Water Authority that serves about 4,800. Brackenridge is about one-third the size with about 1,500 customers.
The difference in the number of customers served makes a difference in how much the water costs the consumer, said Nick Colledge, operations manager at the Harrison Township Water Authority.
He said Harrison has a high concentration of residential customers, which helps with pricing.
Colledge, who was the head operator at the Brackenridge authority for 15 years before moving to the Harrison operation, said a large number of residential customers in one area allows the water provider to get more usage out of its infrastructure.
“The easiest way to think about it is, you’re going to have your main water line running down the road, which costs so much to maintain. If you have plenty of people tapped into that, you’re getting more use out of that line than if you have five people tapping onto it,” Colledge said.
In Tarentum, officials point to operational costs as making a difference. The Tarentum Water Department operates three fully staffed shifts instead of the two shifts manned by the Harrison operation, said Jeff Adams, manager of the Tarentum plant.
“That may be the differentiator, because we’re running 24 hours a day where they’re not running as long,” he said.
Because Tarentum’s plant is almost 90 years old, Adams said, there are a lot of upgrades that are needed, driving prices upward.
“There have been upgrades over the years, but there is some equipment that’s rather dated,” Adams said. “Since we do run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, this equipment is being used.”
How it works
There are two types of public water providers in Pennsylvania, municipal authorities and providers run directly by local governments, according to Jennifer Case, government relations liaison at the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association.
Under Pennsylvania’s Municipality Authorities Act, last modified in April 2020, local governments may create municipal authorities, but, after that, the authorities operate as their own bosses. They have their own appointed boards, hire their own workers and determine rates independent of the municipality.
Other than initial appointments for a water authority board or oversight by a local council for a water department, water providers maintain largely unregulated businesses.
In the case of providers run directly by local governments, a municipality’s council acts as the water provider’s board. It hires staff to operate the facility and directly oversees the plant’s operations, Case said. Council members also decide rates.
Many might assume water providers fall under the state Public Unity Commission, but only one of the providers surveyed by the Trib — the Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority — is regulated by the PUC.
In 2017, Harrisburg lawmakers passed Act 65, granting the PUC oversight of PWSA with respect to customer service, operations performance and setting rates.
While there are more than 2,500 water systems in the state, fewer than 100 are under the PUC’s jurisdiction, said Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, the commission’s press secretary.
Most municipal authorities are outside the jurisdiction of the PUC, but not some municipal water systems.
“The PUC can have limited jurisdiction for rates and services were a municipal service is providing water to people outside of their municipal boundaries,” Hagen-Frederiksen said.
For those residents outside a municipality providing water service, the PUC gives them a voice for service and rates, said Hagen-Frederiksen. When a utility is under the PUC’s jurisdiction, it must demonstrate its case for a rate increase during a hearing. The commission bases its decision on what is in the public’s best interest.
But that is the extent of state control over rates.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is charged only with monitoring water quality.
The water providers in Tarentum and Brackenridge are departments run by their local boroughs, and Harrison’s is an independent authority. Revenue from departments that are part of the local government is not used exclusively by the water provider.
“This is our revenue for our community,” Adams said. “So we use that for helping out our (borough’s) budget.”
Different sourcing
At the Harmar Water Authority, water is sourced from three wells. Although its price is comparable to other providers — about $129 for 12,000 gallons a quarter — Harmar charges $21 more than Springdale Borough, the only other provider surveyed that draws from wells.
“We’re just trying to improve our infrastructure,” said Joe McCollum, office administrator at Harmar Water Authority. “And we’ve been doing at least one to two water lines per year, improving the infrastructure, and we did a complete meter change-out program.”
Even though there are plenty of river sources in the area, it is easier for Harmar to extract water from wells, McCollum said.
“The surface water you have to treat for a bunch of different things, and you’re constantly having to adjust your treatment process, where with well water it’s basically iron and manganese removal,” McCollum said. “And it stays pretty consistent. There’s no changes in the water.”
Consolidation?
Some experts have suggested there would be savings realized by combining the region’s authorities into larger organizations serving wider areas.
But Kristy Donaldson, manager of the Municipal Authority of Buffalo Township, said that would raise a series of difficult questions.
“If an authority were to combine with another authority, who would own it?” Donaldson said. “Geographically, authorities tend to be owned by the township or municipality where they are established.”
Donaldson also said the water itself would become an issue because treatment methods are different at each plant.
“For instance, one plant may be required to add fluoride to the water, while another isn’t. The water produced from both of these plants could not be mixed due to the difference in water quality,” Donaldson said.
In Buffalo Township, which draws its water from the Allegheny River, 12,000 gallons of water costs customers about $91.50 each quarter, making it one of the least expensive providers in the region.
In 2015, Buffalo Township had about 2,646 water connections. In 2020, the number jumped to about 3,070 because of the community’s growing population.
Because of that growth, expansions of the treatment plant will be required, Donaldson said. Still, she said, there has been no discussion of raising rates.
Although local water providers function independently, there is collaboration, Donaldson said.
“We rely on each other to communicate what we are seeing, hearing or any issues we are experiencing,” she said. “It’s definitely a team effort.”
Looking ahead
While he was serving as president of Carnegie Mellon, Cohon was the chair of the Regional Water Management Task Force, a group representing 11 counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania and formed in 2006 at the University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics.
“(The) main recommendation we came to was that the region needed to create some kind of regional entity to coordinate water provision, water and sewer services in the area,” Cohon said.
The task force initially suggested a water district be created to coordinate regional plans similar to the structure in place in other states. However, the discussion was derailed by the economic downturn of 2007-09.
Still, Cohon maintains that merging water providers in Western Pennsylvania would lead to savings for consumers.
“Because of the state of the water systems, there would certainly need to be investment in the short term to bring them up to the condition they have to be in,” Cohon said.
Initially, this would result in higher water bills, but “over time, efficiencies you gain from having the regional approach (would increase), and rates would be lower than they would’ve been otherwise,” Cohon said.
For now, Cohon said, he believes government officials’ desire to remain independent is largely to blame for the differences in water bills from community to community.
“No local authority has discovered some secret approach to producing, distributing cheap water,” he said. “If rates are very different, it’s because of political decisions that have been made.
“(Water providers) choose rates which suit the purposes of the people running these authorities at the time.”
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