Riviera Beach raises water, wastewater rates in step toward a new treatment facility

RIVIERA BEACH — Riviera Beach residents will see a spike in water and wastewater rates in the next year as the city struggles to manage its old treatment facility and lays the financial groundwork to build a new one.

City Council members, sitting as board members of Riviera Beach's Utility District, unanimously approved a new rate structure Wednesday that boosts water rates by 20% in 2024, 10% in 2025, with 3% increases in each of the following three years. Wastewater rates will rise even more sharply — 27% in 2024, 8% in 2025 and 3% in each of the following three years.

The new rate structure, which goes into effect on Oct. 1, means the average household in the city, which consumes about 6,000 gallons of water per month, would have a water/sewer bill of $85.46, a 23.5% increase over the $69.21 bill such a household currently pays. A consultant hired to review the city's rate structure noted that a bill of $85.46 would be only slightly higher than the average bill of $80.99 paid in nearly two dozen other Florida utilities that were analyzed for comparison.

Still, the higher water/wastewater rates are likely to cause pain in a city marked by affluence on its coastal strip but financial struggle in other western sections.

"I'm trying to wrap my head around this," Council Member Shirley Lanier said of the increase. "The cost of goods and services — everything — has gone up. It is becoming scary for people who have fixed incomes and people who have minimum wage jobs."

A representative of the consultant, Raftelis Financial Consultants, told council members that inflation is a major factor in why rates need to be raised.

A Raftelis report detailed huge spikes from November 2020 to November 2022 in the cost of everything from PVC pipe and diesel fuel — up almost 106% and about 209%, respectively — to steel products and fabricated rebar, up 65% and 57%, respectively.

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Riviera Beach residents had enjoyed something of a break in water and wastewater rates since 2019, the last of four consecutive years when rates were raised. Keeping rates as they are is not a responsible financial option, Raftelis' report stated, adding that current rates are "under-recovering costs and are not sustainable at current rate levels."

The Utility District passed a 30% rate hike in 2020, but Council Member Tradrick McCoy successfully filed suit to block that increase, arguing that the city failed to give residents proper legal notice of the increase. Some residents praised McCoy for blocking an increase that would have come just as residents were coping with the coronavirus pandemic.

McCoy expressed frustration with turnover in staff leadership of the Utility District, but he joined his colleagues in voting for the new rate structure.

The backstory: Riviera Beach residents have long complained about the water

Parts of Riviera Beach's water treatment facility are 70 years old, and city officials have known for years that it needs to be replaced. Though city officials have insisted the drinking water is safe, residents have long complained about its color.

Two years ago, PepsiCo, one of the city's largest employers, complained in emails obtained by The Palm Beach Post that it has had to shut down operations to clean out a filtration system the company used to provide additional treatment to the city's water. PepsiCo was left with lime sludge after it ran the city's treated water through the company's filtration system, emails show.

In the past several years, the city has had to make costly repairs and upgrades to keep the aging facility up and running.

Despite the obvious need, Riviera Beach has been reluctant to confront the extraordinary cost of building a new water treatment facility. Estimates for a new facility range from $200 million to $400 million, "but the ultimate cost of the facility is not known at this time," Raftelis' report states.

The higher rates won't cover those costs. But Raftelis' report said they would generate enough money to pay for necessary upkeep, account for inflation and establish a pot of $25 million to $30 million that could be used to help the city borrow what it needs for a new system.

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Raftelis' report left little wiggle room for council members as they contemplated the rate hike.

"It is our opinion that the initial rate adjustment cannot be postponed or reduced since the city needs to finance in the near term the new water treatment plan, which will be a major undertaking," the report states.

City Manager Jonathan Evans said Riviera Beach won't have to borrow all of the cost for a new treatment facility. "We have had some very productive conversations on other funding streams that are available to the city that are going to buy down what that potential cost for a new water treatment plan is," he said. "Things are happening."

New water treatment facility is part of Riviera Beach's massive infrastructure upgrade

The city is in the midst of a vast and expensive "reimagining" designed to replace aging infrastructure and change the look and feel of a place long praised for its promise but limited by poverty, crime and political infighting.

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Evans has praised the current council for its willingness to avoid kicking expensive cans down the road and instead move forward on projects he argued are only going to become more expensive in time.

Lanier alluded to that reality as she and her colleagues prepared to vote for the rate increase.

"We're going to have to bite the bullet to pay for this," she said.

Wayne Washington is a journalist covering West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and race relations at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Water and wastewater rates to spike in Riviera Beach in 2024