I. RECOMMENDATION:
City Council is recommended adopt Resolution No. 4304 to modifying the special terms of the sewer rate Resolution No.3989, approved October 15, 2020, to allow some exemptions for sewer charge applied to metered potable water that is not discharged into the city’s sewer system.
II. BACKGROUND:
Wastewater collection and treatment (sewer) rates for non-residential customers are based on metered potable water into each customer’s facility. The current sewer rate for non-residential customers is $5.49 per thousand gallons potable water metered. The current rates resolution provides for an exemption for non-residential customers with landscape requiring the customer to install a separate landscape water meter for which sewer rates will not be applied. (Installation of a second meter for landscape is a standard practice in new construction.)
However, from recent meetings at Spice World (formerly Sequoia Packing), the large garlic processing facility in the City’s Juniper Ridge Industrial Park, staff has become aware that another exemption should also be included. Potable water that is used in their cooling towers is metered into the facility but is not discharged as sewer water because it is evaporated through the cooling process.
III. DISCUSSION:
Pursuant to Proposition 218, as it applies to sewer and water charges, the intent is that customers pay rates in proportion to the cost burden to the city to provide the services. This can never be perfectly applied because to do so every customer would have a different rate mechanism. However, reasonable steps can be taken, such as determining rate classes containing similar types of customers, and by using volume-based rates for non-residential businesses because in most cases water metered in is proportional to water discharged out into the sewer system.
Often for industrial discharge, the discharge itself is directly metered. For larger wastewater systems, metered discharge can be a requirement. Because Coalinga is a smaller city with few large commercial customers, metering of discharge would be cumbersome because of the operating requirements and maintenance required for a wastewater metering and sampling stations. A practical alternative, in this case for Spice World, is to submeter water flow used for cooling in combination with engineering calculations of the percentage of water used for cooling. As this is to the benefit of the customer, the proposed resolution is written such that the burden and cost will be on the customer to support the determination of water not discharged. Further, acceptance will be at the city’s discretion.
IV. ALTERNATIVES:
Do not change special conditions of sewer rates.
V. FISCAL IMPACT:
A few non-residential customers may pay a lower amount of sewer fees; however, the overall revenue impact will be small. |