Double water, triple sewer: One company wants huge rate increases

Nick Carnevale, who lives in the River Oaks neighborhood in southern New Hanover County, understands that the price of pretty much everything goes up over time.

But the triple-digit increase in water and sewer rates that Fairways Utilities, a subsidiary of Aqua North Carolina, is seeking has left him more than a bit angry.

“The cost of living, the cost of operating everything is going up. I have no issues with that,” Carnevale said. “But a 270 percent increase in my monthly water bill? I just find it amazing.”

Michael Leonard is vice president of the Beau Rivage Homeowners Association, another neighborhood served by Aqua that could be seeing a 167 percent increase in its monthly water bills and a 251 percent jump in its sewer rates.

He said he and his neighbors are outraged by the potential price hikes and intend to say as much at a public hearing the N.C. Utilities Commission is holding on Monday to discuss the proposed price hikes.

“If they’ve been undercharging us all this time and now they’re looking to catch up, that’s unfair to those residents who are there now,” Leonard said. “It’s not a really legitimate reason for raising the rates as far as I’m concerned.

“Nothing’s happened all of a sudden to make them jump up in the last month or two. So if they’ve been out of whack, they’ve been out of whack for a long time.”

And, with the economy quickly souring, Leonard said this couldn’t come at a worse time.

But Tom Roberts, president of Aqua North Carolina, said the rate increases his company is looking for are justified.

“A number of these customers haven’t seen a rate increase for a long time, including Beau Rivage which hasn’t seen a rate increase since 1990,” he said.

Those rates have remained steady while the utility’s fixed costs, including upgrading equipment and meeting new environmental regulations, have increased.

“A lot has changed since 1990,” Roberts said.

Aqua bought the New Hanover utility systems, along with others around the state, earlier this decade. The company has 3,500 water accounts and 2,400 sewer customers in the county.

Because Aqua’s systems are generally small, neighborhood-based groundwater systems for drinking water and package plant operations for sewer treatment, Roberts said comparing the company’s rates to much larger municipal utility systems that can get economies of scale with their operations isn’t really fair.

But the increases proposed by Aqua would makes some of the system’s rates pricier than those of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which serves customers in Wilmington and parts of unincorporated New Hanover County.

For example, the base charge for a water customer in Beau Rivage would jump from $7 to $16.61 per month. The charge per thousand gallons would go from $1.75 to $5.02.

Cape Fear charges $15.20 as a fixed charge every two months, and from $1.95 to $3.95 per 1,000 gallons based on usage.

Carnevale said since most of the homes in his neighborhood have sprinklers, they could see a four-fold increase in their water bills during a typical hot and humid Carolina summer.

“Everyone is saying if they’re going to do this, we’re all going to drill wells,” he said. “We’re not going to pay those kind of prices.”

The Utilities Commission is expected to rule on any rate changes next year, with any price increase likely taking effect that summer.

Gareth McGrath: 343-2384

gareth.mcgrath@starnewsonline.com