Seal Beach water rates need adjustment
MEMBER COLUMN
by Nick Massetti
LW contributor
The City of Seal Beach held a virtual town hall on Feb. 10 to discuss proposed water and sewer rate increases that will affect Leisure World. I attended, and here is my personal takeaway as a resident.
The city needs to immediately address capital improvements to the water system to keep it reliable. Previous water rates have not provided enough funds to cover these costs. So now there are $16 million worth of improvements needed over the next five years. The sewer rates, on the other hand, have actually provided an excess of funds and are in good shape. The proposed new rates are built with the assumption that $7 million of the needed capital will come from the rate increases while $9 million will come from revenue bond debt.
The proposed water and sewer rate structure affects the residents of Leisure World differently from the other city residents. For residents outside Leisure World, the increase in water rates are to be offset by a decrease in sewer rates. They will not see an increase in their expenses. But because Leisure World does not pay sewer-related fees to the city (we pay them to the county), there will be no offsetting rate reduction, and we will bear the full expense of the proposed rate increase. That increase was estimated by the city to be $2.60 per unit per month in May 2020 when it is first imposed. But there will be additional increases in January 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, each of which will be roughly $2 per unit per month. So put this in your expense planning; it will show up in your monthly mutual carrying charge.
One way to significantly reduce these increases to Leisure World residents would be to have the city borrow the remaining $7 million in capital funds just like they plan to do for the first $9 million. We could encourage our two City Council members to encourage this adjustment to the plan. Another way to reduce our water costs would be to conserve our water usage. The most impactful way to do that is to more carefully manage our landscape watering. That means not overwatering and no watering when we don’t need to.
Another way would be to replace our lawns with native plant landscaping that uses hardly any water. Finally we could be sure our toilets are not slowly and silently leaking due to worn components that can waste 20 gallons per day. I checked mine the other day using a blue-dye leak-detection tablet, and sure enough, I needed to replace my old flapper valve.
So let’s all do our part and support the city keeping our water supply reliable but use less water to keep it more affordable. The city sent every resident a notice that there will be a virtual Public Hearing held on Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. if you want to participate along with me.
