People will be receiving a notice because they are identified as being in one or more of the following categories:

If you do not currently use sewer services provided by the City of Los Angeles or this service is not immediately available to you, this notice does not apply to you. To determine if you receive this City service, you can review your Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) bill, or call (800) 773-2489.

The wastewater from your property is discharged to the City of Los Angeles’ wastewater system for treatment and disposal. The City’s wastewater system serves more than four million residential, commercial and industrial users in the City of Los Angeles, in addition to 29 other cities and agencies that contract for this utility service. The system includes more than 6,700 miles of sewers, 44 pumping plants, and four wastewater treatment and water reclamation plants capable of processing more than 550 million gallons of flow each day citywide. The majority of the costs associated with the operation, maintenance, and capital infrastructure of this sytem is recovered
through the Sewer Service Charge (SSC), which appears in the “Sanitation Charges” section of your LADWP bill. This rate structure for the SSC equitably allocates costs to all types of users on a basis proportional to your use of the City’s wastewater facilities. Individual bills will vary based on your winter water consumption for residential customers, or a percentage of your actual water consumption for multi-family dwellings and commercial and industrial customers. The fees collected for the SSC are not used to provide facilities for new developments. The City has a separate fee for new developments connecting to the wastewater system.

The City of Los Angeles Department of Public Works is proposing a series of Sewer Service Charge (SSC) rate adjustments over the next ten years.  The additional fees collected from the proposed rate adjustment will enable the City to continue to rebuild and repair essential aging infrastructure, keep pace with projected materials, utilities, labor costs, and comply with permits and on-going litigation settlement agreements.  Additionally, the proposed rate adjustment will provide for the City’s low-income subsidy program, assist residents with sewer lateral replacements and abandonment of septic tank systems. 

The current SSC rate is $3.27 per Hundred Cubic Feet (HCF). One HCF is equal to 748 gallons. Currently, the typical single family residential SSC bill is $29.88 per month, which places the City’s SSC in the middle third of local cities, as shown in Figure 1 below. After this series of increases, it is anticipated that the City’s rates will remain in the middle third of the rates of these cities. Nationwide surveys indicate that the typical wastewater bill will increase between 6.5-7.5% per year for the next five years. Therefore, Los Angeles’ wastewater increase will be equal to or below the national average.

For typical commercial customers, the Sewer Service Charge is calculated on 90% of your water consumption. Due to water conservation measures, most commercial customers have reduced irrigation and now discharge a higher percentage of the water to the sewer. Based on LADWP’s current Water Shortage Pricing, the percentage discharge will be updated from 90% to 93%. To estimate your new sewer service charge increase, multiply your current sewer service charge by 1.03 times 1.045, or the percentage increase in Table 1 of the notice plus 3%.

Seeking an increase for ten (10) years rather than going through multiple approval processes will secure the wastewater program’s standings with the credit rating agencies, increasing our ability to leverage our funds more efficiently and allowing us to reduce the overall cost of the program. An additional $1.89 billion will be required over the next ten years to fund $1.73 billion in additional capital project costs and repayment of bonds used to fund capital projects. Figure 2 (shown in the notice) illustrates the distribution of additional revenues. The City bills an average wastewater volume of 147,000,000 HCF annually. The rates shown in Table 1 were calculated based on this billable volume and the additional revenue needed over the next ten years. For more information on the expansion of the construction program, please see the list of proposed projects at http://lacitysan.org/wastewater/publications/pdfs/2011/Ten_year_project_list.pdf.

Click the following link to see the full text of the SSC Notification.

The Public Hearing regarding the proposed rate adjustment will be held on

January 27, 2012, at 10:00 a.m. in the John Ferraro Council Chamber, Room 340, City Hall, 200 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, California  90012

Written comments may be submitted by the property owner at the public hearing or mailed to the City Clerk, 200 North Spring Street, Room 395, Los Angeles, California, 90012, no later than 5 p.m. on January 26, 2012.  Please include the Assessors Parcel Number (APN), if shown, and service address located at the top of the first page, and write “Proposed Sewer Service Charge” on your written comment. Parking is available in private lots surrounding City Hall, and City Hall is accessible by public transportation.