To ensure the longevity of the city’s water and wastewater system, Colleyville City Council approved a new rate structure in July that includes an increase in base rates for water and wastewater service effective Dec. 1. Since late last year the council has been reviewing and developing plans to make sure as the city grows the water/wastewater system would be able to keep up with future needs. With the new rate structure the city projects it will have enough money to be able to complete 44 water/wastewater projects, which were deemed necessary to maintain the system, throughout the next 20 years. Mayor David Kelly said the projects total about $55 million, which is one of the reasons the council decided to approve the rate increase. “There are a couple of components [to the rate increase],” he said. “One component is our source of water, which is from the Trinity River Authority; they, in terms of investing in their infrastructures; have increases, so we pass that through to our residents and our commercial operators. The other side is with our infrastructure—most of our water supply [and] sewer supply is [at least 50 years old]. We are going to have to renovate and renew that infrastructure and invest in our infrastructure to make sure it’s a viable system.” TRA communications manager Vanessa Joseph said the plant that provides services for Colleyville saw a 3.65 percent increase for services for 2015. “Part of the increase relates to the power needed and repairs for the plant,” she said. “The increases vary from year to year.” Colleyville Public Works Director Bob Lowry said the new rate structure will also help the city generate more funds to cover the fixed costs associated with maintaining infrastructures. “I think it’s important to note that we didn’t do the rate increase just for the projects,” he said. “We did the [rate] study to try and insure that the [new] base rate provides enough revenue to pay the fixed cost of operating the system. We have to pay people’s salaries, maintain the system, pay for the equipment [employees] use and the fuel they use, and that cost is independent of how much water people use.” The new base rates will cover about 89 percent of operating costs, the current rate covers 41 percent.

Rate structure changes

Along with the base rate changes, the new rate structure removes a city subsidy, which has been in place for more than 20 years, through which the first 2,000 gallons of customer water use is included in the base rate. “In the past the city has subsidized the first 2,000 gallons of water, and that’s going to be phased out over the next four years [at a rate of 500 gallons a year],” Kelly said. “At the end of the fifth year we won’t be subsidizing any gallons.” Colleyville Communications and Marketing Director Mona Gandy said even with the changes to the rate structure, Colleyville will still have one of the lowest water/wastewater rates in northeast Tarrant County. “This is important because [the comparison] provides context for Colleyville residents,” she said. “So [residents]  understand our rates have gone up, but we are still paying less than some of our peer cities. The council does not take any increases lightly. They give [increases] its due diligence and only [approved the new rate structure] because it’s necessary to continue providing the best service possible for water and wastewater.” Other changes to the rate structure include raising the minimum base rate for water meters that are 1 1/2 inches in length or larger. Lowry said the base rate changes for meters will not affect most residential customers but could have an impact on high-use customers, including business and commercial entities. “A majority of our customers have a meter smaller than 1 1/2 inches,” Lowry said. “Those who have larger meters are businesses like Life Time Fitness, which has a pool, and the city.” Changes also include increasing the base monthly rate for nonresidential wastewater service by $6, which will be phased in with gradual increases over a three-year period from 2016 to 2018.

Identifying water projects

The city hired an outside consultant last year to perform a system analysis, which allowed the city to identify its strong points and weak points in the water/wastewater system. Lowry said discovering the weak points helped  officials determine areas in the city in which they needed to focus during the next several years. “They prioritized in the study 27 water and 17 sewer projects that we need to get done,” he said. “The first ones you’re going to see get done is upsizing water lines that are very old and not big enough to meet today’s standards. That doesn’t mean that people are not getting the water; it just means that the lines are getting old and need to be replaced. So we are going to replace them with bigger lines to make sure as the city builds out we will have adequate capacity everywhere.” All of the projects are still tentative, as they will become part of the city’s Capital Improvement Plan, which is a plan outlining improvement projects for the next five years. The CIP goes before council later this summer as part of the upcoming budget. “In terms of projects, the staff reviews [the CIP] yearly,” Kelly said. “[City staff will] bring recommendations to the council, and we will have adjustments to our Capital Improvement Plan. “We may have a set of projects we want to see [completed] the upcoming year, but due to certain circumstances we may need to change a project or push one up. So its kind of a fluid document, which is what we want it to be.” Kelly said the city is not having any problems with its system now but would rather prepare for possible future problems now. “We try to be proactive,” he said. “We don’t want to have a major breakdown that causes us to be reactive and could cause harm to the system. So we are trying to be proactive in terms of looking at the projects that we need to do over the next few years and having a plan to implement the replacement of those needed sewer lines and water supply lines. So we are not having any issues right now, but if we don’t do something to invest and renew in these areas, then down the road we will [have problems].”