Big water bills coming due

I spent a little time this evening attending the inaugural meeting of the Midtown CAC. Among the presenters was the City of Raleigh’s Public Utilities Director, John Carman. Carman (as he’s known around the city) has been meeting with CACs and other civic groups on a speaking tour. He gave a similar talk to the East CAC back in April.

In his talk, Carman explains the many challenges of running his department, among which is the conflicting problem of water conservation. As you may remember, the city’s droughts have prompted many residents to drastically cut back on their water usage. This was good news to almost everyone but Carman, who has to fund his department through water bills. Thus when folks used less water, they actually get charged more because public utilities needs to make up the balance.

Carman also mentioned the controversy that arises when public utilities crews need to clear trees encroaching on water easements. Neighbors protective of their trees give him grief for having to cut their trees down, yet they’d give him grief if he didn’t cut them down and those tree roots caused a blockage. Sometimes you can’t win.

The most important message Carman had to offer is one that the quiet, unflappable engineer mentioned somewhat offhand, and that is that very expensive repairs will soon be needed on Raleigh’s water infrastructure. Carman says that pipe replacement work totaling in the billions of dollars is needed and is not being addressed due to the economy. He cited the example of cities in the “rust belt” of America who deferred these repairs until the pipes began to crumble, only when it came time to pay for the repairs the population had already dwindled. This puts the cities in a spot almost impossible to get out of.

If you thought the City Council’s infamous disposal ban was a political hot potato, it ain’t nothing compared to the massive tax hike needed to refurbish Raleigh’s aging water infrastructure. The question is, how long we can afford to gamble?