Falls Water Board approves 2023 rate hike driven by skyrocketing cost of chemicals for wastewater treatment plant

Nov. 14—With little opposition, the Niagara Falls Water Board approved an 8.9% increase in water rates for 2023.

The rate increase was approved unanimously, along with the board's 2023 budget.

The rate hike follows a 17% increase in 2022, with the skyrocketing cost of chemicals used at the board's wastewater treatment plant labeled as the culprit.

"One of the biggest challenges of our budget is having the largest wastewater treatment plant in the country that is carbon driven," said Water Board Chair Nick Forester. "This water board has been aggressive in efforts (to build) a new bio(logical) wastewater treatment plant. It's the only way ratepayers are going to get relief."

Forester pegged the cost of constructing a state-of-the-art biological treatment plant at $250 million.

"We have an old plant," Forester said, recalling an incident in 2017 that sent thousands of gallons of wastewater flowing into the lower Niagara River, just below the falls. "This is an aging infrastructure that desperately needs attention at both the state and federal level."

The conversion of the treatment plant to one that uses a biological approach to handling wastewater would significantly reduce the water board's reliance on chemicals whose cost, they say, have increased 227% in the past four years.

"In 2018 chemicals were 9.6% of our budget," Forester said. "Today, they are 26.4% of the budget."

The explanation from Forester was enough to even garner some grudging sympathy from residents speaking at a public hearing on the rate increase.

"I understand (chemical) prices and whatever," said Susan Ford, a retiree. "But I no longer have that big paycheck."

She asked the water board to consider a lower rate for people who use less than the current minimum charged for 13 cubic feet of water.

"Please charge me for what I use," Ford asked.

Forester also said that the industrial base of the city, which once used most of the water service has now declined to a point where residents use the majority of the water supply. The shutdown of Occidental Chemical's Buffalo Avenue plant reduced water board revenue by $800,000.

In a statement released earlier, NFWB Executive Director Abderrahman Zehraoui said the rate increase will "ensure safe, quality drinking water is provided to the surrounding community."

For "average small meter residential customers" bills will go up $45.76 per year. In its public statement, the board said those customers would pay 88-cents a week more for water service.

The rate increase will become effective Jan. 1.

The water board's outside rate consultant had recommended a 10.5% rate increase.