Water/ Sewer Rates

So I'm reading the newspaper a few minutes ago and see my town is raising the water/sewer rates. It's pretty costly as it stands right now......($51.00 per month for up to 5000 gallons and $3.00 for each additional thousand gallons over that). They want to increase it by $20.00 per month (about 39%)so the minimum will be $71.00 per month. When I moved here in 1986 it was $28.00 per month and I thought that was high.
Seems we won't have a tax increase though. I should hope not!! I'll be at the next meeting to voice my displeasure with the town council. They were going to pass it this past week but couldn't due to an "advertising error".
Man, sometimes ya just can't win.

Same here, we just moved where they were raising taxes, water/sewer, etc...My parents went from $70/qtr to $170/qtr!!

just becuase they never increased it for quite a few years, the previous Councils probably didn't know what the Exact Costs/expenses were (Total B.S.!)
The city's and villiages should do small increases to offset costs (1-2%/year), instead of a 20-30%+ or more increase every 5 years or if something comes up, like a new water/sewer plant and then miss deadlines for grants, etc...it comes down the to taxpayers....geesh.

WNY wrote:just becuase they never increased it for quite a few years, the previous Councils probably didn't know what the Exact Costs/expenses were (Total B.S.!)
The city's and villiages should do small increases to offset costs (1-2%/year), instead of a 20-30%+ or more increase every 5 years or if something comes up, like a new water/sewer plant and then miss deadlines for grants, etc...it comes down the to taxpayers....geesh.

Where I work the town has fought for years not to tax commercial businesses and the state finally won. We went from no sewer fee to about $1800 a year. The fee is determined by a set rate per thousand gallons discharged. Thats the fee to the town to offset the cost of the towns POTW. A 5 year state permit to discharge costs about $20,000 (permit + hoops of other nonsense) and the Engineering firm's application will run well over $30,000 next time around (this usually is one licensed firm reviewing and rewriting the last firms application and putting it in a different colored binder). It actually took 7 years longer than our permits expiration date by the time the state renewed our permit, saved us a fortune there. Thanks guys.

I'm off the grid but it still costs money. My sewer rate is $50/year ($200 to have the septic tank pumped every 4 years) My water is about $15 a month in electricity to run the well pump. I could go longer on the septic but I figure $50/year is good insurance.

According to the paper, the Mayor has resigned over this. They are indeed doing water treatment/sewer plant upgrades and apparently, according to the artilce I read the borough pursued grant money early in the process but council decided not to during the past year.
Someone will be explaining this to me and quite a few others at the next meeting.
The other thing here is that there are two rather large developments that are proposed to be hooked into the system. That is the biggest reason that the plant is being upgraded. It seems everone must pay for this so called "progress". Seems very unfair to me.

we have two septic systems and a well here, and my parents have a septic system and a well, but where my parents live they are trying to push sewer thru so they can subdivide the farm across the street.....the farm land is marked out, but the developer is pushing for sewer and of course they want the homeowners that are already there who spent thousands on new drainfields to hook up......gonna cost my parents 28,000 dollars.....this is nuts.......my parents are in their 60's paid 6 grand for the house in 1968.......i've already had the cop follow me home from the township building down there, cause i flipped out over a notice telling me that i cannot work on cars in my driveway. no more berks county living for me.......coal country is where it's at, and i'm close to the interstate......good for my car buisiness......i have a good number of customers from the metro dc area

SuperBeetle wrote:That is the biggest reason that the plant is being upgraded. It seems everone must pay for this so called "progress". Seems very unfair to me.

There was a development that went in about 10 years near me, dirt cheap property. No one had ever built in this area before because it was a dam soup bowl with a creek running through it. The river is right next door so they are well below the elevation of the dike. Now they get flooded everytime there is even any type of water event. Gee, you think you might of thought of that before building the house there. Now they want the county to invest millions in a pump station...

Richard S. wrote:

SuperBeetle wrote:That is the biggest reason that the plant is being upgraded. It seems everone must pay for this so called "progress". Seems very unfair to me.

There was a development that went in about 10 years near me, dirt cheap property. No one had ever built in this area before because it was a dam soup bowl with a creek running through it. The river is right next door so they are well below the elevation of the dike. Now they get flooded everytime there is even any type of water event. Gee, you think you might of thought of that before building the house there. Now they want the county to invest millions in a pump station...

my parents land is a soup bowl like you describe......it's wetlands.......if you guys ever heard of the daniel boone homestead, that is across the field from my parents house.....the field is where they want to build 60 homes......theres 3 creeks running thru the neighborhood, everybody gets water in their basement.......i laughed at the people doing the perk tests in the field a few yrs ago.......told them they dont need to put water in the hole, it will come out of the hole all by itself lol......and it did!

No one had ever built in this area before because it was a dam soup bowl with a creek running through it. The river is right next door so they are well below the elevation of the dike. Now they get flooded everytime there is even any type of water event.

Yeah it's always a good idea to build in an area that is prone to flooding. Maybe I'll by one of those beach homes and you guys can come to visit