Your electric bill has increased.
Your cable bill has increased.
Now your water bill is likely to increase — and in a big, big way.
Lancaster city is proposing to nearly double the amount it charges its 78,000 suburban residential customers for water service beginning this fall, a move that would cost the average household about $120 more a year.
Commercial and industrial customers face even larger increases under the city Bureau of Water's proposal, submitted to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission on Friday.
The move is designed to pay for a $90 million-plus filtration project completed last year as well as planned upgrades to the water system, said Charlotte Katzenmoyer, the city's director of public works.
"The rate increase includes future capital projects we have over the next three to five years — water mains that need replaced, pump stations that need work," she said.
If the city's request is approved:
• The quarterly bill for the average residential customer, who uses 12,000 gallons every three months, would increase to $63.38, up 89 percent from $33.59. The additional $29.79 a quarter adds up to $119.16 over the course of a year.
• The quarterly bill for the average commercial customer, who uses 190,000 gallons every three months, would increase to $868.77, more than double the current $410.84. The additional $457.93 a quarter adds up to $1831.72 over the course of a year.
• The monthly bill for the average industrial customer, who uses 500,000 gallons a month, would increase to $1,838.66, up 134 percent from $784.64. The additional $1,054.02 a month adds up to $12,648.24 over the course of a year.
If approved by the PUC, the rate hikes would take effect Oct. 26. They would generate more than $8.6 million in additional revenue a year.
About 60 percent of the city's 130,000 water customers are outside the city, in Millersville Borough, and the townships of East and West Hempfield, East and West Lampeter, Manor, Lancaster, Pequea and Manheim.
The city also supplies water indirectly to customers in East Petersburg Borough, West Earl Township and the Leola area of Upper Leacock Township. Those municipalities buy city water in bulk and resell it to their customers.
The proposed rate hike is not unexpected. City officials had said as far back as 2006, before the filtration project even began, that they would need to increase rates by as much as 79 percent to pay for the filtration project.
The two membrane filtration facilities, completed in May 2009, are designed to extract impurities from river water. Membrane filtration — using strands smaller than dental floss — is the same process used for bottled water.
The upgraded Conestoga plant, built in the 1920s, has begun using the microfiltration process. The Susquehanna plant, built in Columbia in the 1950s, is going through a testing period and is expected to go online in September.
The city must get permission from the PUC to raise its rates for customers outside the city, a process that can take several months. City Council can raise rates on customers within the city without state approval.
Rates increased by 30 percent for city residents at the beginning of this year and might go up again next year, Katzenmoyer said.
The last rate increase for suburban customers — of 13 percent — came in 2006.