Economy still shaken by Covid and Ukraine contributes to hikes in water and sewer bills
Fresh Pond Reservoir on April 11. (Photo: Marc Levy)
Cambridge residents’ water and sewer bills are rising – though by less than $100 on average – for reasons ranging from inflation to the war in Ukraine.
The city charges only to cover its expenditures, staff said March 18 to city councillors, but inflationary costs and supply chain issues that make construction of infrastructure projects more expensive and push up that bottom line is not a trend that’s expected to stop.
“Just in one recent contract for a water main installation, the contract price from the last contract to this contract has actually gone up 42 percent,” said Mark Gallagher, the acting managing director of the Water Department, in comments to the council. “And we’re seeing that across the board – basically all of our labor and materials costs have increased since Covid, and then the supply chain issues following Covid, and the war in Ukraine stressed our supply chains considerably.”
That is reflected in increases starting Monday of a combined 5.23 percent in water and sewer pricing for residents proposed by City Manager Yi-An Huang and accepted by the council: Single-family homes will pay an average $1,183 for the upcoming fiscal year, up $59 from current rates; two-families will pay approximately $1,570, up $78; and three-families will pay $2,313, up $115.
The increases in charges – 6.8 percent for water use and 4.8 percent for sewer – is expected to bring in $91.6 million in the 2025 fiscal year starting July 1, up from a projected $87 million in the current fiscal year.
Until 2021, the city had held the line on water and sewer increases for a decade.
The City Council questioned staff about chloride levels in the city’s water supply. High levels of chloride in water can cause corrosion of pipes and other equipment it flows through, as well as posing a health risk at higher concentrations. Damage to infrastructure from hard water could raise costs in upkeep.
“The hardness and chlorides issue is definitely a priority that we are looking into,” Gallagher said. “Our first priority, of course, is making sure that we meet drinking water regulations. Things like chlorides and hardness are secondary standards, which are usually for aesthetics. They are important to us, and we are researching ways that we can reduce those.”
The water can also damage consumer appliances.
Councillor Patty Nolan asked staff to be aware of those downstream costs. “I understand we’re meeting all the health and drinking [requirements],” Nolan said. “And yet, there’s distributed costs throughout the city.”
Failure of plumbing equipment from Cambridge’s hard water “ends up being a cost that is borne by the individual,” Nolan said.
Not about water and sewer, but about another aspect of living in Cambridge. Guess Cambridge is going to have problems enforcing its ban on natural gas. First, the city should be getting rid of something it controls i.e. city trucks using fossil fuel, and it could start with the trucks in the Cambridge Cemetery and the DPW trucks which are all around the city.
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — The city of Berkeley, California, has agreed to halt enforcement of a ban on natural gas piping in new homes and buildings that was successfully opposed in court by the California Restaurant Association, the organization said.
The settlement follows the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ refusal to reconsider a 2023 ruling that the ban violates federal law that gives the U.S. government the authority to set energy-efficiency standards for appliances, the association said in a statement last week.
“While the Ninth Circuit’s ruling renders this particular ordinance unenforceable, Berkeley will continue to be a leader in climate action,” Berkeley City Attorney Farimah Faiz Brown said in an email to The Associated Press.
The restaurant association said Berkeley agreed to settle the case by taking steps to repeal its ordinance, but because the process will take several months, the city will immediately stop enforcing the ban to comply with the court ruling.
In 2019, Berkeley became the first U.S. city to adopt a ban on natural gas in new homes and buildings, starting a climate change-driven move in many other cities and counties that morphed into a culture war over the future of gas stoves.
Trying to go natural gasless before there is electric infrastructure to deal with the increased demand was always a really bad idea for Cambridge to try to enforce. It’s a bet as best, especially considering the battles between our only power supplier in the city and MIT over how cables are run and thru which areas of land between substations.
Fix the wiring and power generation issues before committing to new rules that could overload our available systems.