Great Lakes Article:

New Berlin studying water rate revision
By Darryl Enriquez, denriquez@journalsentinel.com
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Published January 27, 2008

New Berlin - To demonstrate it is serious about conservation as it works to gain a pipeline to Lake Michigan, this southwestern Milwaukee suburb is working to alter its user rates to encourage residents and industries to consume less water.

Waukesha, New Berlin's western neighbor, changed the rate structure last year to conserve water among its residential customers but not commercial or industrial customers. New Berlin wants to expand its rate changes to include commercial and industrial firms.

Known as a conservation or inclining rate block structure, the practice bucks the long-held tradition among water utilities of charging customers lower rates as their consumption increases. The practice was used as a means to lure industries.

New Berlin, as did Waukesha, now wants to make water more expensive as usage increases, Mayor Jack Chiovatero said.

The state Public Service Commission in May approved changing Waukesha's rate structure. Waukesha implemented its new rates in June, largely to depress water use for lawn sprinkling during peak periods in summer.

Chiovatero said a subcommittee of the New Berlin Utility Committee has worked for three months to develop a new rate schedule and its incremental charging structures. The subcommittee likely will seek reactions from affected industries, he said. Its next meeting is set for Feb. 1.

The subcommittee is looking at a rate structure that increases the cost of water as it surpasses increments of 5,000 gallons per quarterly bill.

Chiovatero said he's unsure whether the water utility's billing system can dispense bills measured in those small increments.

Customers who use less than 21,000 gallons of water per quarter likely would not see their bills increase under the new reverse-rate plan, Chiovatero said.

New Berlin now buys water from Milwaukee to serve the east side of the suburb. New Berlin wants to buy additional water from Milwaukee to supply its central developments and take them off of radium-contaminated well water. That plan would require lake water to be temporarily diverted outside the Great Lakes drainage basin.

Because the area is served by Milwaukee-area sewers, the wastewater would be returned to Lake Michigan with apparently little loss of water volume to the lake.

Approval to negotiate

New Berlin has approval from the state Department of Natural Resources to negotiate with Milwaukee, or with Racine and Oak Creek water utilities in the alternative, to gain a source of lake water.

But before New Berlin can strike a deal, the DNR says, the state must pass its version of the Great Lakes Compact, which is supposed to regulate and monitor three areas of Great Lakes water consumption: in-basin water use, diversions and conservation measures.

Legislation for a compact is expected to be introduced in the next session of the state Legislature.