Metro Detroit residents, increasingly facing rising household costs, are now taking their concerns to city hall, with many this week warning Lincoln Park’s city council that they won’t be able to afford their water and sewer bills after the latest rate hike.
It’s an issue that is also playing out in other suburbs.
"The city didn't take this lightly," Lincoln Park City Manager Lisa Griggs told the Free Press on Wednesday, Aug. 26. "But it's a decision we can't kick down the curb any longer. We have to do this. We have almost daily water main breaks. There were many years (when) there was no infrastructure upgrades."
The city’s new rates push some of their water bills up as much as 28%, and the resulting uproar, which was also reported this week
by other news outlets, including WXYZ-TV (Channel 7), shows how rising costs of water, electricity, gasoline and food are cutting into Michiganders' incomes and leaving them feeling frazzled.
Griggs said that for most residential customers, the bill works out to a monthly increase of less than $17.
Lincoln Park’s impending rate hike is a response, city officials said, to efforts to repair and replace aging infrastructure and rate increases by the Great Lakes Water Authority, which provides drinking water and wastewater services to nearly 4 million people, about 40% of Michigan’s population.
The authority supplies water to Lincoln Park and more than 120 other communities in eight southeast Michigan counties, although the majority of them are metro Detroit suburbs and exurbs in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.
The water authority board voted in February to increase its rates, which works out to be an average increase of 5.8% for water and 4.26% for sewage. That vote came a year after the authority approved the largest systemwide service charges in over a decade.
Are bills now unaffordable?
In Lincoln Park, the city council voted Aug. 10 to increase its rates, which will take effect Sept. 1.
On Monday, Aug. 24, Lincoln Park residents packed city hall, WXYZ reported, with many decrying the increase and expressing not just frustration, but also worries that it seems there is little they can do to afford their bills as financial pressures mount.
Sierra Yanez, a mother of three, told officials she was already behind on bills.
"It's gonna be detrimental," WXYZ reported she said of the utility bill increase at the council meeting. She explained that when it comes to water, there is little she can cut back on to make ends meet. "Dishes need to be clean. Laundry needs to get done. Baths need to be had."
Under the new rate increase, residents will be charged a set amount, essentially a tax, which the city is calling a "Readiness To Serve" charge based on the size of the water meter. Most residents will see a charge of $58.26 a quarter. Businesses, which use bigger meters, will pay more.
The charge helps pay costs such as staff, insurance, accounting, audit, and technology, which exist whether a resident uses water or not, according to Plante Moran, the consulting firm that prepared the study proposing the rate system. But it also means, the study said, that low-volume and lower users are affected more significantly.
Lincoln Park officials blamed the local rate hike on several factors, including a need to fix aging water infrastructure, a problem that's not limited to the city. But Lincoln Park's pipes, they said, are losing as much as 40% of their water a year through small leaks and pipe breaks.
And, the city manager pointed out, the same increases residents are facing — the increased cost of electricity, gasoline, insurance and health care — are also added costs that the city also has to cover.
The infrastructure repairs will cost more than an estimated $36 million during the next decade and could stop the water losses, but over time, the city manager said, they should also eventually help save water and to bring water bills down overall.
But communities also are now wrestling with climate change. Scientists have tied more temperature extremes to greater rainfall and snow, and catastrophic flooding that puts pressure on the wastewater system — and adds to insurance premiums.
Expect even more water increases
Yet, even as communities wrestle with increasing rates, more may be on the way.
The water authority already warned earlier this year that the future is likely to bring more rate hikes.
"Our responsibility," Suzanne Coffey, the authority’s CEO, said in February, "is striking the right balance; protecting affordability for the communities we serve while making the investments necessary to ensure long-term reliability, public health and system resilience."
When the authority raises rates, local municipalities are left to pass them on to residents.
How each local community handles how to do that varies, so it’s difficult to determine how an authority increase affects individual residents. Each community bills at different intervals. Some bill monthly or every two months, and still others, like Lincoln Park, once every three months.
Residents are finding ways to vent their frustrations. Earlier this year, dozens of residents throughout the authority’s coverage area showed up in person at the water authority meeting, and more than 200 others watched virtually via video conferencing, to express irritation with the rising costs.
Whether their complaints made much of a difference is hard to know.
But Nicolette Bateson, the authority’s treasurer, warned at the time that "sustaining affordability while modernizing infrastructure will need to go beyond the current funding model of placing the burden on our member partners and the households and businesses they serve across our region."
Her suggestion: The state and federal government could step up and cover some of the expense.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lincoln Park raises water rates up to 28%. Is your community next?
