Water rates in the northwest Harris County area previously slated to increase for the April 1-30 billing period will now instead increase for the July 1-31 billing period.

The North Harris County Regional Water Authority board of directors approved postponing the increases of pumpage fees and surface water rates at an April 20 teleconference meeting, according to the authority.

NHCRWA President Al Rendl told Community Impact Newspaper in March that rate increases could be tied to ongoing projects designed to decrease the region’s groundwater usage through more surface water resources.

Rates have steadily been increasing for the last several years and will increase again, effective July 1, from $3.85 to $4.25 per 1,000 gallons of groundwater and from $4.30 to $4.70 per 1,000 gallons of surface water. According to documents from the NHCRWA, the first billing period increase will not be due until Sept. 18.

“We have an additional $1.69 billion of debt that we are taking on to convert 60% of all the water that’s used in the North Harris County Regional Water Authority to surface water,” Rendl said in March. “And in order to pay for that, we have to increase the fees, ... and we will probably go up in the range of 45-50 cents [per 1,000 gallons] for the next three or four years before it’ll start to level off.”


Starting in 2003, the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District mandated the NHCRWA, among other entities, reach at least 30%, 60% and 80% surface water reliance in 2010, 2025 and 2035, respectively.

Rendl said as underground water sources known as aquifers begin to dry up, the ground’s surface has gradually settled downward, a process known as subsidence. This led to the subsidence district’s formation in 1975 and later the mandate that if not met by 2025, water authorities will pay a penalty of around $9 per 1,000 gallons of additional groundwater used, he said.

“We’re doing it to meet the subsidence district mandates, but we’re doing it also because if we do not do it, we will not have water in the future,” he said.


Read more about the authority’s latest projects here.