Ridgefield residents will see changes to what they’re charged for water usage starting in July after the city council voted to approve a rate structure designed to promote conservation in the city.
On June 9, the City of Ridgefield website announced the city’s water utility rates will change beginning on July 1. Two weeks prior to that, the Ridgefield City Council voted 6-1 to approve the change, which charges higher rates for customers who use more water than before.
During its May 25 meeting, the council heard from consultants and city staff about the rate change. The council had previously tasked staff to find water conservation rate options for residents, city finance director Kirk Johnson said.
Johnson explained the change isn’t intended to bring more money in for the utility.
“We don’t want to raise revenue. We just want to change some things and give some options to council to look at how could we potentially use our rate structure to incentivize conservation,” Johnson said.
Residential users comprise 75% of water users in the city, Johnson said. City staff focused on the three bi-monthly cycles with the highest usage, starting in May and ending in October.
During those months, about a quarter of residential customers use 3,000 cubic feet or more per two-month billing period. The average for residential users throughout the entire year is around 1,600 to 1,700 cubic feet.
For the hottest period of July and August, residential users in that 3,000 cubic foot and above range is closer to 45%, Johnson said.
The city has experienced impacts to its water system during peak times of use. In the past few years, there have been weeks where the water pressure has gotten low enough for the city to receive feedback from residents, according to Ridgefield City Manager Steve Stuart.
“We have heard from our utilities supervisor that yes, it’s a concern,” Stuart said.
The approved rate change adds a tier for the highest residential consumption and adjusts the higher-tier rates based on past customer usage. The new top tier is for customers who use more than 5,000 cubic feet in a billing cycle, and is about eight times the cost per cubic foot as the lowest tier of up to 1,000 cubic feet in a cycle, based on the city’s water rate document.
Johnson noted the city is currently going through a utility rate study for both water and stormwater, though it had not concluded at the time of the meeting. Usually, the city adjusts its utility rates toward the end of the year, but in order to have the new structure ready in time for the hottest period of the year, the council needed to approve it at the May meeting, he said.
The council also received information on a number of incentives they could implement, though the rate structure change was ultimately the only one to be approved. Those incentives ranged from offering lower rates if a residence reduced its usage from the same period during the prior year, to rebates on drip irrigation or water monitoring systems.
Johnson also noted the potential for code changes down the line to support water conservation, such as landscaping types, requiring covers on pools or offering rebates for high-efficiency appliances.
Though Councilor Lee Wells, like most of his seatmates, supported the rate structure change, Wells said he wanted to play devil’s advocate, and brought up how a focus on less water usage could end up affecting the look of the city.
“Our new developments, they need water for the trees to get them set up for a number of years,” Wells said.
Mayor Pro Tem Rob Aichele also expressed concern on how the rate change would impact land maintained by homeowners associations. Watering those areas falls under the commercial irrigation rates for usage, Johnson said, which is higher than the regular commercial rate under the new structure.
“If we penalize the HOAs for keeping areas green that these scenic drives beautiful … then they have to pass those costs on in dues to the residents,” Aichele said.
Mayor Jennifer Lindsay hoped the change in rates would encourage residents to think twice about how they’re using water.
“I don’t necessarily think it’s going to turn our city brown,” Lindsay said. “It’s going to encourage people to maybe be a little smarter in the way that they’re keeping everything the way that they want.”
The city has provided a number of water conservation tips for residents and the new rate structure online at ridgefieldwa.us/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=35.
