Behind the costs: New water rates kick in

In Maricopa, water comes at a cost.

Jan. 1 was the beginning of Global Water Resources’ eight-year series of rate increases for Maricopa approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission. As announced by the company, the monthly water bill will increase 4.4 percent.

The monthly usage charge from Global Water on a 5/8-inch meter will be $28.40. A Phoenix residential water customer pays a monthly service charge (base fee) of $4.36 on a 5/8 meter. Chandler water customers pay $8.87 on a 5/8 meter.

Global Water General Manager Jon Corwin recognizes the bills seem higher than usual to some people due to the city’s relatively new water pipes and infrastructure.

“Comparing rates in Maricopa versus rates in another city or a private utility is not as straight forward as it might seem,” Corwin said. “For an older city like Phoenix, all of the infrastructure has been paid off for a while. Here in Maricopa, we’re still paying ours off, which means it’s more costly for now.”

Though there’s no single factor to blame for thousands of Maricopans’ triple-digit water and sewer bills, there are several entities within the community that have an impact, either real or perceived, on the price of water and sewage.

Global Water
As the primary water and wastewater provider for approximately 17,500 customers in Maricopa, Global Water generally takes the bulk of the criticism and blame for Maricopa’s high water prices. The publicly traded utility company functions mainly in newer cities and towns that don’t have a public utility yet, such as Maricopa, and rural areas west of Phoenix.

According to Corwin, one of the biggest issues facing Global Water is its necessary long-term planning and expansion to meet the potential demands of future homeowners in the Maricopa area. Global Water must prove to the state and city government it can meet current and future demand for 100 years.

Maricopa’s original water and sewage facilities, which Global Water purchased from the Santa Cruz Water Company and Palo Verde Utilities Company in 2004, have seen increases in capacity as new subdivisions have been planned and built, Corwin said.

Corwin said the only way to ensure there is enough water for Pinal County’s future population is to use its Total Water Management system, which provides reclaimed water anywhere that potable water isn’t necessary. Though Global Water only currently provides for “several dozen customers” in Pinal County outside of Maricopa, Corwin said there are plans elsewhere in Pinal County for Global Water to be the water and sewage utility as the areas grow.

“There’s not enough water in Pinal County to support 1.5 million people,” Corwin said. “Eventually you won’t have enough water to supply homes, but you can push that point out as far as possible with recycled water and Total Water Management. Recycled water sent to the lakes and other public areas allows us to provide for more homes for a longer time.”

Corwin said Global Water’s recycled water is in the A+ Class according to Arizona’s Reclaimed Water Quality Standards, and it’s both cheaper for HOAs and easier for the utility and homeowners within the community to sustain long-term.

“Right now, people are paying more up-front for the recycled water, but it’ll be cheaper in the long run,” Corwin said. “We don’t know how expensive a gallon of water will be in the future, but we know what the price of recycled water will be. Water doesn’t break down over time, so we can reuse water once it’s in the loop.”

Global Water is also looking to better track its clients’ water usage by installing Automated Meter Reading systems at each home. In a similar manner, the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system used at Global Water’s facility in Maricopa is constantly keeping an eye on each of its pump sites throughout the area.

Homebuilders
As with any relatively new community, the homebuilders have an impact, too. When it comes to Maricopa, homebuilders are aware of the high price of water and many are marketing around it.

“With the tiered rate system that Global Water uses, the lowest tier is a pretty low price for water. It’s when you go up from there that they start gouging you,” said Derek Anglin, assistant vice president of Elliott Homes.

Anglin said his company, which is building homes in Maricopa’s Santa Rosa Springs community, makes its houses more eco-friendly and energy-efficient.

“We build our homes with energy efficiency and water conservation in mind,” Anglin said. “Obviously in places like Maricopa, water conservation is particularly important, so we include things like low-flow faucets, dual-flush toilets and tankless water heaters.”

Anglin said while there are some home improvements people could make to conserve more water, such as replacing faucets, water heaters, toilets and outdated appliances, they shouldn’t expect to see a big drop in the water bill by changing the water meter.

“You have to hire a qualified contractor to change out the meter, and I think most houses are probably already at three-quarter-inch meters, but the ones at one-inch could switch,” Anglin said. “You’re still going to use roughly the same amount of water though. It’s just going to come out slower.”

Though it’s not alone, Anglin believes Elliott Homes is on the leading edge of homebuilding technology in Maricopa.

“A lot of homeowners would rather spend a little more on the home and less on the utilities in this area, so we make sure they’re getting all of the latest technology and construction for their money,” Anglin said. “We generate homes for livability rather than just to meet the minimums of the code.”

Ultimately, Anglin realizes that even though Maricopa’s water situation is far from ideal, it could be a lot worse.

“Global Water has the highest water rates in metro Phoenix, but there are people in California who can’t afford their water bills or can’t even get as much water as they could afford because of the drought.”

City of Maricopa
One aspect of Maricopa’s water situation that often shares the blame for the high water prices is what the city government does – or perhaps doesn’t do – about it.

Robert Mathias, the city’s manager of Development Services, has worked with building codes for more than two decades, and he’s never seen anything like Maricopa’s circumstances.

“I’ve lived in several towns about the size of Maricopa, but this is probably some of the lowest volume of water I’ve seen,” Mathias said. “Where I live here, we have pretty low volume and high cost for water and sewer.”

Mathias said the key to keeping water and sewage bills down has much more to do with the volume of water than the pressure.

“The pressure is just the rate at which the water comes out. The volume is what you’re being billed for,” Mathias said. “A smaller pipe and smaller meter means you get less volume at the same pressure. You reduce the volume. You have less usage, so it’s less costly.”

Mathias pointed out most residential homes use a three-quarter-inch meter, but some Maricopa neighborhoods were inexplicably built with one-inch meters.

Maricopa doesn’t have any of its own rules or regulations on water. Instead, Maricopa uses the Arizona Administrative Code, which essentially reflects the bare minimums for water on an international scale.

HOAs
Pamela Hilliard, director of operations for Associate Asset Management, which manages several Maricopa communities, said Maricopa’s community managers and homeowner associations have been getting hit just as hard on water prices as the homeowners themselves. It’s not just the rates the communities have to deal with; it’s the quality of the recycled water, which Hilliard said contains approximately 10 times more salt and calcium than would be considered healthy for many plants.

“The quality of the reclaimed water is terrible,” Hilliard said. “We’ve bought acid treatments because of the calcium buildups and salt busters for all the salt. Those are all additional costs for the HOAs.”

Aside from having to buy the chemicals to counteract the problems in the recycled water, managers are also forced to consider which plants will actually survive the use of the water.

“The calcium and salt sticks to the roots of the plants and trees, which kills a lot of them,” Hilliard said. “I had to make a list of the plants that can survive, and every so often someone from another community will call me and ask if they can see the list.”

Hilliard said a 2009 report completed at Rancho El Dorado Phase III showed nearly every community in the Valley, with the exception of Estrella Mountain, has significantly higher quality recycled water than Maricopa.

The notes on the independent report read as follows: “This is very poor quality water for irrigation. The very high salinity makes leaching necessary, but the very high sodium is likely to cause a water penetration problem, making leaching difficult. Coarse-textured gypsiferous soils with no restricting layers, salt tolerant crops, soil amendments, and special salinity management will help. This water probably cannot be used successfully on a long-term basis.”

The quality and pricing of the reclaimed water isn’t the only problem that Hilliard has encountered as part of Maricopa’s biggest community management team, but also the amount of recycled water put into communities’ lakes.

“Managers have no control over the amount of water that goes into lakes. That’s all handled by Global Water,” Hilliard said, explaining the utility has about a two-foot window in which they can raise and lower the lakes’ water levels without facing any repercussions. “The problem is, people have floating docks that fall two feet and end up at an angle, and the lakes overflow pretty frequently, which is just wasting water.”

Despite the many water issues Maricopa’s homeowners and community managers face, Hilliard said the situation isn’t as bad as it could be, and there are some small improvements being made.

“Global Water has started sending the managers a quarterly testing report, which we never used to get,” Hilliard said. “We’ve had issues in the past with Global Water billing the wrong community, and they would never respond to us. Communication in general has improved recently.”

Maricopa’s struggles with Global Water have been well-documented, including a 2010 court case over a proposed rate increase. On Feb. 6, 2014, the Arizona Corporation Commission approved the rate increase, but the settlement imposed it gradually rather than immediately, as the utility wanted.

By Jan. 1, 2021, customers will have seen an increase of 9.9 percent.

“We knew they’d get the increase, so the settlement was really a win for us,” Hilliard said. “More recently, we got their new (Infrastructure Coordination and Financing Agreements) taken out of play, which was something we wanted.”

Global Water raises money to buy other utilities through ICFAs.

“I don’t see why we should be paying for them to buy utilities in other areas,” Hilliard said. “We’re already going to end up taking quite a hit when someone builds south of town and they need another plant to go online.”

***ADVERTISEMENT***Though future building in the southern portion of Maricopa will cause another jump in water rates (due to the ICFAs for a facility to the south of town being added to the base rate when the facility becomes “used and useful”), Hilliard knows Maricopa’s high rates are not all Global Water’s fault.

 “We have to continue to make the other community boards and managers understand that we’ve been in a drought for 15 years and that our water supply isn’t endless,” she said. “If anyone needs to see proof of that, look at how low Lake Meade and Lake Powell are. Even our own reservoirs are pretty empty. Water in a lot of the Valley is subsidized by taxes, but Global Water gets no tax money. That’s part of the tradeoff. People choose to live in Maricopa, and they know the taxes are low, but they still get upset over the water rates.”