Price Sewer Fairly: Petition to the Grants Pass City Council

(Petition Statement, Signature Side)

We, the undersigned residents and business owners of Grants Pass, want our sewer service to be priced fairly, as a subscription service, without unit rates.  Debt service would be a separate, fixed fee and end when the debt is paid.  Rates would rise only by actual inflation of the previous year’s expenses from the year before, not the Consumer Price Index.

This is an advisory petition to the Grants Pass City Council, to request that this matter be discussed and acted upon at a City Council Meeting.  It is not a petition for the ballot. 

Signers must be city residents, landlords, or business owners.

(Statement of Points, backside)

Price Sewer Fairly

Council, please eliminate unit charges on our sewer service, raise the rate only by actual expenses of the previous year over the year before, and assign the plant’s debt service to a fixed fee that ends when the debt is paid.

          We are currently charged unit charges for sanitary sewer service, also known as wastewater treatment, based on the average number of units of water per month used the previous winter.  We should be charged only a subscription base rate, without unit charges, and any inflation of the rates should be based on a rise in actual expenses of the plant of the previous year from the year before, not the Consumer Price Index.

Unit charges are unfair to large households, many of whom are poor and must share housing expenses, and/or are young families with children.  People who can afford to live alone or as couples generally do so. 

Charging unit prices only subsidizes the rich and punishes the poor and those with more children for the water we use for household uses.  It is more just and better for the workings and finances of the plant to have the well-off subsidize sewer for poor people and for larger families who raise children who will pay taxes to Social Security and Medicare.

This service benefits all people equally, so households should pay equally, as should businesses and governments, depending on their water service size class.  Cities provide sanitary sewer service and mandate the use thereof within city limits to control the diseases that can result from contact with sewage.  We treat our wastewater to drinking water standards set by the federal government before returning that water to the river for the same reason and to protect the life in our river. 

We cannot control the amount of bodily waste we produce, and there is no reason why we should.  We have some control over the amount of water we use, and that can be a problem for sewage treatment if people are charged high sewage bills for winter water use.  Our waste requires a lot of water to carry it down the pipe to the wastewater treatment plant.  If people are using the toilet several times before they flush it and otherwise being very careful about their water use, the pipes can clog, interrupting service, causing trouble, and creating extra expense.  Having more concentrated waste may also make it harder and cost more to clean it to drinking water level.

Likewise, if people become very careful about their water use because of high water unit charges and wastewater unit charges on top of that, the city will collect less money from unit charges and have to raise the sewer rates on everyone.  Everyone will have to pay more for the same service. 

To start paying for the debt service on the ongoing renovation of our sewage treatment plant, the City raised the rates 7% on both the base rate and unit charges, assigning half of a fixed cost to variable revenue, dependent on winter water use.  It is set to be raised 7% again next year and the year after.  That debt service should be paid with a fixed fee for a very fixed cost, which is not affected by inflation.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040            rycke@gardener.com