Photograph: City Attorney Travis Broissard and Finance Chairman Charles Cummings review the ordinance. (Photograph by Bobby Ardoin.)
BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
Opelousas water system customers have less than a month remaining before increased monthly costs for water and sewerage consumption become effective.
The city will begin charging customers with significant rate increases beginning July 1 in order to rectify state and federal violations that involve each system, city officials said during a May Board of Aldermen meeting.
While the current base rates for residential usage are scheduled to rise by about 50 percent, commercial rates could escalate as much as 165 percent, city engineer William Jarrell III acknowledged during the May meeting.
Following a discussion on the condition of the city water and waste water issues, the Board consented by a 5-1 vote an ordinance which allows the city to pay for not more than $100 million in state utility revenue bonds in order to facilitate long range improvements for the utility system.
Although the proposed increases will be calculated starting July 1, the new schedules for water and sewerage will be reflected in bills mailed to customers Aug. 1..according to bonding attorney Eric Lafleur, who was at the May meeting of the Board.
Jarrell said overall infrastructure conditions for the municipal drinking water system and sewerage treatment are both old and in very poor condition and fail to meet Clean Water Act standards established by state and federal agencies.
Failure by the city to make the required repairs and upgrades or comply and correct violations for the water and sewer systems Jarrell said would ultimately result in significant state and federal fines assessed to the city.
The additional monthly costs passed on to customers for the improvements will assist the city in paying for an estimated $98 million in capital outlay projects intended to satisfy state and federal officials and remedy municipal water and sewerage treatment issues, Jarrell added.
“Looking at (city) water and waste water, the condition is that both are either very poor or in very poor condition. The (Louisiana Department of Health) now has a (community) grading system that has determined some issues. The water is safe, but the (LDH) has determined there are many other components that have been violated with the water system,” Jarrell said.
Mayor Julius Alsandor said the city water system has approximately 7,000 resident and commercial users. The rate increases may not apply to every resident and are not expected to be the same for every customer.
“The first two thousand gallons will be considered as the base rate. The usage rate on your bills will tell you what you will be using,” Alsandor pointed out.
In January the Opelousas received an “F”, according to a rating system created by LDH. On May 1 the city received a final LDH grade of “D” for its water system.
The final grade report on the LDH website for the Opelousas system shows the city had 10 points on an 80-point scale deducted for federal violations for insufficient treatment techniques and potential contaminate problems that could pose public health risks over an extended period of time.
Another 10 points were subtracted for customer complaints about the water system and LDH water quality or quantity issues in the city water system, according to the report.
City attorney Travis Broussard noted during the meeting that Opelousas has already paid $12,000 in fines for the various violations.
“If something is not done, (the city) is just getting started (paying fines). The city does not have enough money to pay for the fines. This is not a sales pitch. We (the city) are just conveying to you what has been conveyed to us. The new rates are being charged in order to improve the system. If we don’t improve the system, then we will face penalties,” Broussard said.
Kent Schexnayder and Faith Howard, who represented the New Orleans-based Sisung Group which provides financial assistance to government agencies, provided the Board with a chart that indicates how the increased rates could eventually affect customers over the next three years.
Rate adjustments will be assigned to what customers now pay for their water usage, while additional increases will occur for usages above the base rate, Howard said.
Lafleur said customers will now pay for improvements for operational maintenance and to create a reserve fund that enables the city to pay over a period of 20-30 years in order to fix for problems with both the water and water treatment systems.
“The rates are being raised in order to cover the debt service which will be about four hundred twenty thousand per year or five million per year,” Lafleur added.
