Council adopts new sewer billing system

   With a mixture of reluctance and resignation, Township Council gave final approval Tuesday night to an ordinance that changes the way in which residential sewer bills are calculated.
By: Lea Kahn
   Although Township Council voted unanimously to bill customers on a usage basis, several council members said they were casting their votes for it grudgingly.
   The ordinance calls for property owners who are hooked up to the Ewing-Lawrence Sewerage Authority to pay for sewer service, based on the amount of water they use. Currently, residential customers pay a flat fee annually. The new ordinance takes effect Jan. 1, 2002.
   The township is changing its sewer billing system because it is in violation of the federal Clean Water Act, which requires sewer billing to be based on consumption, Municipal Manager William Guhl said.
   The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered the change in the sewer billing system following an investigation of sewer rates in Ewing, Hopewell and Lawrence townships, Mr. Guhl said. If the township refused to change its system, the EPA would have sued and the township would have been subjected to fines, he said.
   The EPA has the right to regulate the township’s sewer billing system because ELSA accepted federal money in the 1970s to update its sewage treatment plant, Mr. Guhl told Township Council and the dozen or so members of the audience.
   The consumption-based billing system includes a $42 fee for debt service, billing and administration. The fee will be assessed against each single-family house, each apartment, each hotel or motel room and each plumbing fixture in a commercial property.
   Under the ordinance, the sewer fee will be based on the amount of water used by the customer. The sewer fee is $3.48 per 100 cubic feet of water. One cubic foot of water is the equivalent of 7.48 gallons.
   A household that uses 84,000 gallons of water annually, for example, will pay $391 for sewer service, plus $42 to cover debt service, billing and administration. This compares to the annual flat fee of $264 that all households pay now — regardless of water consumption.
   Single-family houses that are served by private wells — but that are connected to the ELSA system — will pay on an estimated basis. The ordinance sets the charge at $494.16 for residences that use an estimated 14,200 cubic feet of water, or 106,223 gallons. Township officials reviewed the water usage in three single-family neighborhoods to come up with that figure, Mr. Guhl said.
   The new sewer billing system is more equitable because it is based on actual usage, Mr. Guhl said. Under the old system, a family of six paid the same sewer bill as a person who lives alone and who does not have a dishwasher or washing machine. The water from those uses goes directly into the sewer system.
   Customers who live in a single-family house and that use water for the lawn, to wash cars and to fill up the swimming pool — water that does not go back into the sewer system — could install a separate water meter on the outside faucet, he said. The customer could subtract the amount of water used for those purposes from the total water bill to help determine the sewer bill.
   Township Councilwoman Doris Weisberg said that as a rule, she does not have a problem basing the sewer fee on usage. When one has to pay for water, one tends to conserve water, she said.
   But Elmer Elhardt of the Lawrenceville-Pennington Road, who depends on a well for water, objected to the increase in his sewer fees. People who have wells already are interested in conserving water, he said.
   "Because I have a well, you are going to increase my sewer rate by 106 percent," Mr. Elhardt said. "There is a problem with this. I don’t think it is a fair system. We try to conserve water."
   Main Street resident Judy Niles suggested basing the sewer fee on a per-person basis — determining the number of persons living in a house and assessing the fee.
   But John Mello of the EPA, who attended the council meeting, said that while he sympathized with Mrs. Niles, federal regulations do not allow for the head-count method.