Township may waive fee for water meter

The meter would allow residents who are hooked up to the ELSA system and rely on a well for their water to receive a consumption-based sewer bill.

By: Lea Kahn
   Township officials plan to waive the permit fee for the installation of water meters for property owners who are hooked up to the Ewing-Lawrence Sewerage Authority.
   It costs $46 to take out a permit to install a water meter — a step that some residents are likely to take in the wake of increased sewer fees, said Municipal Manager William Guhl.
   Applications for permits for water meter installation are available at the township Construction Department. The water meter must be installed by a plumber, at the homeowner’s expense.
   Township Council agreed earlier this year to scrap the flat rate for sewer billing in favor of a system that bills property owners based on the amount of water they use. The change, which takes effect in January 2002, was made to comply with the federal Clean Water Act, Mr. Guhl said.
   Most ELSA customers are hooked up to one of the three water companies that supply water to the township — the Lawrenceville Water Co., the Elizabethtown Water Co. or the City of Trenton Waterworks. Sewer fees would be easily determined for those customers, based on their water usage.
   But determining exactly how much water was used by residents who are hooked up to the ELSA system and who rely on wells for their water supply is not easily done. In that case, the ordinance that created the new billing system contains a provision for an estimated sewer billing.
   So the ordinance provided that property owners who have private wells can install a water meter to determine actual water consumption — and a consumption-based sewer bill rather than one based on an estimate, Mr. Guhl said.
   There are other reasons why a homeowner might want to install a water meter, regardless whether the house is served by one of the three water companies or a well, the manager said.
   "If a property owner uses water that doesn’t get returned to the sewer system, then they have the right to provide us with information on the water consumption they should not be billed for because it doesn’t go into the sewer system," he said.
   For example, a homeowner who lives on a large property may have installed an underground water sprinkler system for the lawn, he said. Some property owners use water to fill their swimming pools. The water does not go back into the sewer system under either set of circumstances, he said.
   For example, a property owner may be billed by the water company for 20,000 cubic feet of water, but the water meter that measures outdoor use shows that 4,000 cubic feet of water was used for lawn watering or filling a swimming pool. With a meter reading, the sewer bill would be based on 16,000 cubic feet — which is the amount of water that was used and that actually was returned to the sewer system, he said.