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JEA is proud to be a not-for-profit, community-owned utility, and we think it’s important to be open about our operations. Here are answers to a few questions you might have.
Why are water and sewer rates going up?
Simply put, our expenses have gone up and revenue has gone down. As a not-for-profit, community-owned utility, JEA’s revenue must cover our costs. Providing clean, safe and secure drinking water and treatment of human waste in an environmentally responsible way is our number one goal. While we’ve streamlined our operations as much as possible, a rate increase remains necessary.
What expenses went up?
Our suppliers have increased their costs for materials and supplies. Our energy costs have increased by 10 percent. New environmental standards have increased our costs. And debt service on past money borrowed for mandatory system improvements continues to increase. These increased costs have put pressure on JEA’s credit rating, which affects the interest rates we pay for future system improvement loans.
Why is revenue down?
The economic downturn affects utilities, too. Conservation is already factored into JEA’s rates; however, extreme reduction in demand, as a result of the recession, has caused rates to increase more than they might have. Lower-than-expected growth and customers’ additional conservation measures have both decreased revenue.
What did JEA do to prevent this situation?
We’ve reduced staff costs by 5 percent, total operations and management costs by 9 percent ($10 million) and capital programs by 50 percent ($115 million). We will continue to reduce wherever possible. However, improvements deferred this year will need to be made in the future to prevent deterioration of our systems.
How much will bills increase?
In the first year of the increase, the average water and sewer customer using 6,000 gallons per month will have a $5.21 increase on their monthly bill plus taxes and City of Jacksonville franchise fee. Currently, 67 percent of our customers use 6,000 gallons or less. Heavy water users will have a much larger increase. See charts below.
Click to enlarge this table for easier viewing.
Click here to view residential rate adjustment chart by meter size.
Click here to view multi-family rate adjustment chart by meter size.
What if we don’t conserve?
Water conservation helps to preserve our water source, the Floridan Aquifer, one of the purest, most plentiful in the country. Without conservation, we risk overuse of the Aquifer. So if we don’t conserve, we will be forced to develop more expensive water supplies much sooner. For example, desalination of brackish groundwater is four times as expensive; desalination of St. Johns River water is seven times as expensive; Aquifer recharge is nine times as expensive; and desalination of seawater is twelve times as expensive.
What can we all do to conserve?
- Check and replace leaky toilet flapper valves
- Install high-efficiency shower heads and faucet aerators
- Consider replacing toilets with WaterSense certified toilets. Click here to learn more about high-efficiency toilets.
- If you have an irrigation system, be sure your rain sensor is working properly. Click here to learn more about irrigation conservation.
- For more ways to conserve, read the St. Johns Water Management District’s, “Water Conservation Guide: How to Do Your Part”
What makes up our community’s water and sewer systems?
Our community’s water system consists of 35 water treatment plants and more than 100 wells. As a community, we use an average of 130 million gallons of water per day. About half of that water goes onto people’s lawns. On the sewer side, it takes 15 sewer treatment plants and more than 1,000 pumping stations to manage our waste output. Collectively, we produce more than 70 million gallons of raw sewage per day that must be treated. Some of that treated sewage is cleaned and provided as reclaimed water for re-use for irrigation in our community. Currently, we have nine reclaimed water treatment plants with a combined capacity of producing 26 million gallons of reclaimed water per day. Reclaimed water customers used 10 million gallons per day (MGD) last year and are expected to use 12 MGD this year. That’s good news since recycling wastewater helps to reduce the amount of drinking water that is used for irrigation and it decreases the nitrogen to the river.
Is conservation working?
Yes. If we continue to conserve and increase our use of reclaimed water, then by 2035 we can reduce the projected amount of water our community uses at that time from 180 MGD to 160 MGD. That’s 20 MGD our community would be saving to help sustain drinking water for the next generation.
JEA will continue to share information that is important to you. We look forward to providing safe, reliable drinking water that is environmentally sustainable at a reasonable cost, now and in the future. |
