Water rates are slated to rise April 1 for residents within the North Harris County Regional Water Authority, which includes portions of Cy-Fair east of Hwy. 290.
The fee for pumping groundwater will increase from $2.90 to $3.40 per 1,000 gallons pumped, and the cost of surface water will increase from $3.35 to $3.85 per 1,000 gallons, according to NHCRWA officials.
Costs for residents within the West Harris County Regional Water Authority—which covers parts of Cy-Fair to the west of Hwy. 290—increased Jan. 1. Groundwater rates went from $2.45 to $2.70 per 1,000 gallons, and surface water rates went from $2.85 to $3.10 per 1,000 gallons.
The rate increase is needed to help fund projects designed to deliver surface water to the area from Lake Houston, NHCRWA President Al Rendl.
“Our financial people are saying they think that we can get by with about a 50 cent increase on an annual basis until the rates reach somewhere in the $5 range,” he said.
Rates in west Harris County could go up by another 25 cents in 2019, said Wayne Ahrens, lead engineer on the project with Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation.
“It’s hard to speculate beyond that,” he said. “The cost of some items [of the project] may escalate, which would in turn impact rate increases.”
Both water authorities are a part of a team that has been tasked with converting portions of the Greater Houston area from groundwater to surface water as mandated by the state, which is requiring that 60 percent of water use come from surface water by 2025 and 80 percent by 2035.
Groundwater comes from aquifers, or natural underground pockets of water. Rendl said if the area does not decrease its groundwater use, aquifers in certain areas will eventually run dry.
“The farther north and west you go, where most of our new construction and demand is, that’s where the aquifers are much shallower,” Rendl said. “When you look at all the development around the [Grand Parkway], all of those people are going to need water. The growth is causing us to have to rethink almost daily where we’re going to need lines first and where we’re going to need lines the most.”
Bringing surface water to Cy-Fair involves several steps. The $361 million Luce Bayou Project will allow officials to pump up to 450 million gallons of water per day from the Trinity River to Lake Houston, where it will be treated at the Northeast Water Purification Plant, Rendl said.
From there, a series of transmission lines will pump water to different stations and storage facilities across Harris County, and eventually to the utility districts that will provide it to customers.
The purification plant is also being expanded through collaboration with the City of Houston to handle up to 400 million gallons of water per day. The $1.4 billion project is expected to be in operation in 2024, Rendl said. The existing plant on Lake Houston was in dire need of replacement due to design faults that made it difficult to purify the turbid Lake Houston water, he said.
Rendl said water rates in unincorporated Harris County are still low compared to other cities facing water challenges, such as Phoenix, Los Angeles and in the city of Houston. Over time, he said more people have begun to realize the importance of securing water for the future.
“There are more and more people, and there is only a finite amount of water,” Rendl said. “The Earth does not create water. What we’ve got, we’ve got.”
