[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish Council nearly doubles residents' water and sewer rates

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish Council nearly doubles residents' water and sewer rates
Print Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Benjamin
Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
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on January 06, 2015 at 8:50 PM, updated January 06, 2015 at 9:44 PM

The St. Bernard Parish Council on Tuesday night (Jan. 6) approved an
ordinance amendment that nearly doubled resident's water and sewer rates,
and tripled them for some commercial users, in an effort to improve water
quality in a parish about a year after a brain-eating amoeba was found in
its water system.

The parish's water and sewerage rates had not changed since 1997. Under the
increases, the average residence in St. Bernard, which uses about 8,000
gallons of water per month, will see its water rate jump from about $13 a
month to $24 a month. 

Residential sewer rates are calculated as 90 percent of water usage, meaning
the average resident uses about 7,200 gallons a month. The average sewer
rate therefore now will increase from about $15 a month to $36 a month.

The parish will use the rate increases to pay acquire and pay interest on
two state loans needed for capital improvements -- $21 million for water
pipes and $10 million for sewer lines. Parish officials have said that the
parish could only qualify for those loans with the rate increases.

The council first introduced the ordinance on the increased rates on Nov. 5.
The council then tabled its vote on the matter three times. The council had
been discussing the increases since the beginning of 2014.

And perhaps because the increases had been discussed frequently over the
past year, only one resident spoke Tuesday night during the public hearing
before the council's final vote on them.

Neisha Encalade, 45, of Violet, said she was against the rate increase
because she felt the council instead "should put it on the ballot for the
public to vote on it." 

"I think you need to put it to a vote of the people," she said.

The Tuesday council meeting was held in the Old Beauregard Courthouse in
eastern St. Bernard, a new tradition for the first council meeting of the
year. A couple more residents had spoken during a town hall on the proposed
increases in the Council Chambers in Chalmette on Monday.

Those residents Monday mainly complained of the increased post-Hurricane
Katrina tax burden but they said they understood that their smaller
population must shoulder more.

"Property taxes just went up. Then something like this hits us," Vincent
Forte, 64, of Chalmette, said at the Monday meeting "It's really hard to
keep up with everything going on.

"...But it's true that the parish does need help."

State Department of Health and Hospitals engineer John Williams wrote a
letter last month to the Parish Council supporting the proposed rate
increase rates, in part saying the occasional red and muddy water in old
Arabi is caused by the "older unlined cast iron pipes."

He said the corrosion of those pipes can diminish chlorine levels and
increase "bacteriological growth through the development of biofilms, or
cells that stick together and coat the pipes giving the brian-eating amoeba
a place to live."

The brain eating amoeba found in St. Bernard's water system in 2013 led to
the death of a 4-year-old boy who had been playing with a water slide. And
while in February federal testing of the water system declared the parish
system clear of the amoeba, his death prompted a renewed emphasis on needed
repairs and upgrades -- and on finding money to pay for them.  

Drake Smith Jr.'s death was not discussed by the council on Tuesday. But,
some on the council did talk about the troubles following Katrina -- how the
storm had driven away residents and caused fewer users, meaning there are
now too few people to regularly flush needed chlorine through it.

The future infrastructure repairs, councilmen said, would help that chlorine
better circulate despite the parish's still shrunken post-Katrina
population.

The increased rates also would go toward hiring about 18 to 20 additional
employees for the water and sewer department, Councilman Ray Lauga has said.
There currently are about 55 employees in the department, down from 105
employees before Katrina. 

Below, see a graphic explanation of the rate increases:

Proposed St. Bernard water & sewer rate changes
 	Current	Proposed
Water rate per thousand gallons	$1.65	$2.98
Sewer rate per thousand gallons	$2.03	$4.94
Average residential water bill per month	$13.20	$23.84
Average residential sewer bill per month	$14.62	$35.57
Total average residential water & sewer bill	$27.82	$59.41
*Based on residential average of 8,000 gallons a month
See a PowerPoint slideshow that goes into more details on the rates:
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/01/st_bernard_parish_council_rai
s.html