The money raised will cover the cost of building a series of massive tunnels that will capture polluted storm-water runoff and keep it from flowing into the Chesapeake watershed. DC Water has little choice in the matter: The federal government has mandated the project. What makes it less palatable is that much of the runoff originates elsewhere, but the cost of the tunnels will largely be born by D.C. residents. And the project leaves DC Water with less money to replace water and sewer pipes whose average age is 77. At the current rate, pipes are replaced once every 100 years.
The WASA board, which votes on rate increases, has been known to lower rates in the past in response to public protest.
Residents are only now starting to feel the pinch, and they’re not happy about it.
“I’m a bit put out that while Hawkins is proposing these outrageous increases in rates for residents, he has spent an extraordinary amount on a PR campaign,” said Mary C. Williams, a former Ward 6 Advisory Neighborhood Commission member. “So, are we supposed to suddenly trust WASA now that it is known as DC Water?”
Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), chairman of the committee that oversees DC Water, has also started to hear from his constituents, especially older residents on fixed incomes. DC Water pays for the projects with money raised from bonds, and residents are on the hook for repaying those bonds, even after the tunnels are finished.
“Will the charge go down? As it currently is planned, it doesn’t look like it in my lifetime,” Wells said.
Behind the scenes, Hawkins has been scrambling to find some way to make the rate increases smaller, including capturing methane from the waste it treats to produce energy and sell it and setting up a consulting arm. He has also proposed establishing water filling stations throughout the city, where people can pay to fill a bottle with chilled water for a fraction of what bottled water costs.
As he searches for other options, he will keep trying to win over customers.
“If we don’t get the support of the public we serve, we don’t get support for the rate increase,” he said. “We have to be honest about what the needs are.”
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