A Water Department Vessel skims trash off the Schuylkill River. Trash can be picked off the river, but other pollutants require specialized detection and treatment.

As we spend the week talking about the big-ticket items that made this month’s rate changes necessary, we can't forget the work PWD does to maintain the health and safety of our ratepayers.

Today’s Water Department customers rely on us to protect them from pollutants that past generations didn’t have to worry about. We are already taking steps to keep our drinking water safe and improve the detection of Iodine 131, an element used to treat thyroid disease, and pollutants from Marcellus Shale gas drilling.

PWD takes its role as the protector of our region’s drinking water very seriously. For us, the rivers aren’t just the source of our product; they’re a major environmental, recreational and tourism asset. The revenue we receive from our ratepayers is used in large part to help us protect our drinking water supply both for our current customers and future generations of Philadelphians.

Do you have questions about any of these issues? Feel free to get in touch with us on our Facebook page. You can also go to our website to read more about Iodine 131 or Marcellus Shale drilling in the Delaware River basin. 

We've mentioned in previous blogs that we've got better priced water than our suburban friends. Our infrastructure has to stay ahead of the curve to keep it that way.  Photo- Randy Calderone.

Now that we’re into the New Year, most of our customers have probably gotten their first water bills of the year. As we explained at the beginning of the month, rate changes that were approved as a part of our public hearing process this summer and fall went into effect starting January 1st. While rate increases are always difficult, we don’t take them lightly and turn to them only to cover the costs of “big-ticket” items that occur in the process of providing the same clean, safe, reliable drinking water our ratepayers have come to depend on.

For the next few days, we’re going to outline some of these big-ticket items so we can be as transparent as possible about what our recent rate changes are going toward.

To start off... for all of those who have seen the newly released theatrical version of Les Misérables and were curious about the sewers through which Jean Valjean carries a wounded Marius Pontmercy, let us explain a little about Philadelphia’s sewer system which bears some striking resemblance to those of mid-1800s Paris.

Our combined sewer system sends wastewater from the home into the same pipes as storm water from the rain. While the generations before us were doing the best they could with the information and resources they had at the time, it turns out that connecting the pipes that come from our drains and toilets to the same tunnels that carry the storm water can bring some problems. As little as a tenth of an inch of rain is enough to overwhelm our sewage treatment plants and cause overflows of storm water and raw sewage to spill into our waterways. So PWD is solving this with our state-of-the-art and yet fiscally conservative $2 billion Green City Clean Waters Plan. This is as little as a quarter of what other cities have planned on spending to fix the same kind of problem, but it will still add to our costs over the next several years.

Our goal is to use green infrastructure to keep storm water from ever reaching the sewer system, directing it instead where it naturally wants to go: back into the ground. “Green” infrastructure refers to street trees or planters, as opposed to “gray” infrastructure like pipes. By the time all of the Green City, Clean Waters infrastructure improvements are put in place, Philadelphia will have the nation’s greenest, most innovative and naturalistic solution for storm water management. It’s an investment that will pay off for our children, grandchildren and beyond.

Check out our Green City, Clean Waters Year in Review 
to see how far we’ve come already and learn more about where we’re going.

Have you noticed Green City, Clean Waters projects in your neighborhood?
Share with us at our Facebook page!

Pop Quiz: How many flushes does your average water bill buy you?

a. 1,152
b. 2,327
c. 3,516
d. 5,240

(Answer is on the back of this web page. Just kidding. It’s c – 3,516.)

As we mentioned in our previous post comparing Philadelphia Water Department rates to those of neighboring utilities, the average Philadelphian uses about 600 cubic feet or almost 4,500 gallons. The total bill for that amount of water usage AND the wastewater treatment that keeps the water supply clean AND the stormwater management that keeps the streets clear and the rivers healthy AND billing and collecting done by the Water Revenue Bureau (a department of the government wholly separate from PWD) comes to about $63.

Let’s have some more fun with math, shall we?

Given those numbers, 10 gallons of water costs about 14 cents. In four years, after the proposed rate adjustments have gone into effect, that 10 gallons of water will cost a little more than 16 cents. To put it in perspective, 10 gallons of the water (which is likely tap water, same as that you can get at home) in that 99-cent, 20-ounce bottle from the local convenience store would cost about $63. (And probably not taste any better at all.)

Those extra two cents or so per 10 gallons allows the Philadelphia Water Department to continue to ensure safe, high-quality drinking water while being a responsible steward of the region’s waterways—the Delaware and Schuylkill, along with dozens of other creeks and streams enjoyed by thousands of people every day. Those extra two cents mean that our children and grandchildren will have a chance at a cleaner, healthier environment than the one we started with.

With the Philadelphia Water Department proposing a rate change for 2013, we're running a series of informational posts to explain how water rates are set, the terminology behind the rate setting process, and the investments PWD is making in our city's infrastructure, health and environment.

A combined sewer overflow

As we wrote in our post explaining what it means to be a “cost of service” utility, PWD doesn’t operate to make a profit. We simply need to set rates so that we cover our annual costs and long-term debt obligations without ever needing a bailout from the City of Philadelphia. So our rates change for the most part as our costs change. We’re able to shield our customers from the full effect of rising costs by finding other places to cut expenses. When the “big ticket” cost increases come along, that’s when we go to our ratepayers to help shoulder the load a little and make it possible for us to continue to provide the same clean, safe, reliable drinking water they’ve come to depend on.

What are some of the big ticket items?