Robyn and Louisa's Blog

Water, Wastewater Rates Rise

Phoenix residents who receive city water and wastewater services will see a slight rise in their bill this month. The average customer's monthly costs for water and wastewater services will increase$3.78 to $56.68. Phoenix’s water and wastewater rates remain among the lowest of comparable cities nationwide and in the Valley.

Phoenix continues to use your money wisely to rehabilitate and replace aging water and wastewater lines, improve treatment plants, enhance security, integrate new customer services technologies, and meet or surpass increased public health and environmental standards, as well as pay for unfunded federal mandates.

The fixed monthly service charge, which is based on customer’s meter size and which allows for a basic amount of water use and recovers the billing, collections and meter maintenance costs, will remain the same.

The new water rate applies to the volume of water used beyond the amount included in the fixed monthly service charge. The average increase is based upon a single-family residential customer using 11,344 gallons of water per month.

Under the new schedule, for the low usage months of December, January, February and March, the per unit (748 gallons) rate goes from $1.99 to $2.18; for the medium months of April, May, October and November, it goes from $2.44to $2.69; and for the high months of June, July, August and September, it goes from $3.16 to $3.51.

Also, the environmental charge, which relates to activities taken to enhance the environment by way of federal regulatory requirements, goes from 37 cents to 40 cents per unit.

The wastewater rate increase is reflected in the sewer and environmental charges that are applied to the average consumption for the period of January, February and March. The fixed monthly service charge of $1.22 will remain the same.

Phoenix has the third lowest combined water and wastewater single-family monthly bill as compared to 10 other southwest cities.

Posted at 10:46AM Mar 30, 2010 by Louisa Ward & Robyn Viktor in General  |  Comments[0]