Bellevue residents’ water rates will have to increase or the city may be unable to maintain its current level of water service.
Bellevue’s Utilities Department staff passed along this message at a City Council study session on June 13 at Bellevue City Hall, one which received mixed reactions from council members. No action was taken at the meeting, but the city could consider a potential rate hike for 2017 later this year.
Nav Otal, utilities director of Bellevue, said the city’s water utilities are in great shape.
To keep them that way, Bellevue might have to consider a 5 percent annual increase in rates “to support operational and capital needs.”
Bellevue currently has the highest residential water rates on the Eastside, a fact that did not escape Councilmember Kevin Wallace, who urged utilities not to obfuscate the numbers.
The average Bellevue household pays $58.42 in water utility bills every month, according to city data. This is $1.32 over Kirkland, $4.01 over Mercer Island and a whopping $21.42 more per month than the average Redmond resident.
The numbers are more forgiving when it comes to multi-family and commercial properties, but Bellevue is not far from the top in any of the water categories.
“There are several factors which differentiate us,” Otal said.
One of these is the city’s strong financial position and the $50 million kept in the water infrastructure reserve. Another is the fact that Bellevue is ramping up water main replacement, hoping to replace five miles of small-diameter main replacement every year by 2018 (Bellevue has more than 600 miles of water mains, making this a 125-year project, Otal said).
The last major issue that drives up water rates is the fact that unlike Issaquah or Redmond, Bellevue has no independent water supply.
Bellevue is a member of the Cascade Water Alliance, which acts on the city’s behalf to purchase water wholesale from Seattle. Tolt and the Cedar River are both sources of water for Bellevue and other Eastside utilities.
Bellevue does make up ground when the three Bellevue utilities (water, storm, sewer) are averaged out. In those numbers, the average Bellevue resident pays $156.74 monthly, below Kirkland and Mercer Island, well below Seattle and well above Redmond, according to city data.
“The total utility impact is competitive,” Otal said.
The 5 percent increase that utilities proposes would fall somewhere along the lines of 1.5 percent to the wholesale supplier, 2.5 percent to capital infrastructure investment and 1 percent to maintenance and operations. The city already provides rate relief of $1.3 million to low-income, senior and disabled residents.
Councilmember Lynne Robinson said she was proud of the high quality of the city’s water, which has a 93 percent approval rating.
A recent scare of lead in the water ultimately turned out better than initially expected.
“We did some sampling from homes built in the ’40s and ’50s,” she said. “Most of those homes were in west Bellevue and Clyde Hill.”
In May of this year, an old report was released, announcing that 13 of Bellevue’s 16 elementary schools had unsafe levels of lead in the water. This report turned out to be outdated and inaccurate, and utilities spokesman Michael May revealed the truth shortly thereafter.
“Bellevue meets all government requirements for testing of lead in water,” he wrote. “In this case, the utility worked with the homeowner on solutions [and that] Bellevue Utilities conducts routine water sampling and results tracking to ensure safety and quality.”
Test results revealed that water levels ranged from none at all to a few parts per billion, under the federal mandates for safe drinking water.
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In other council news:
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• Sound Transit staff told the council during a presentation about a possible transit-oriented development in Bel-Red near a future light rail maintenance yard and the coming Spring District.
The agency completed a feasibility study on the project, which would feature housing and offices between 116th and 120th Avenues Northeast.
According to city sources, “Sound Transit will use a “design-build” procurement process for its operations and maintenance satellite facility that is expected to provide multiple proposals from construction companies for Sound Transit and the city to review.”
Sound Transit plans on bringing a full presentation on the project to the Sound Transit Board of Directors in July, with a possible construction date of 2023.
