Category Archives: water

Water Utility Reform and Local Elections

Posted on by
2

Although multiple media outlets covered the City Democratic Committee mayoral forum at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School this past Tuesday, the Times Dispatch newspaper captured this exchange:

Morrissey also chided Berry, a former assistant city manager in Richmond and county manager in Hanover County, on his response to a council candidate’s concerns about high city water rates that are inflated by an annual payment to the general budget in lieu of taxes.

Berry had warned that eliminating the payment from the public utility enterprise fund would hurt the city’s general budget. “The problem is if you take that away, it’s money that goes away from the general fund.”

Morrissey responded, “Just because you need the money doesn’t mean you can add a phony, faux tax to the water bill.”

Councilperson Baliles, who could not attend that forum, released this video:

On top of that, there was this announcement:

On today’s packed edition of Open Source RVA, we talk with city council candidate Charlie Diradour about his campaign to represent the second district. We discuss Richmond’s water rates, transparency in city government, what’s happening with Monroe Park and a host of other topics
…
We also welcome back to the program Farid Alan Schintzius, who talks about his legal efforts to appeal the decision by the city’s electoral board that disqualified him from the mayoral ballot. Too much show? You decide. Listen in at 2PM on WRIR 97.3 FM and http://wrir.org.

That’s today (Friday, Sept. 9 at 2pm).

So…The ongoing citizen campaign to reform City of Richmond’s water utility has become part of the local election landscape. Oregon Hill neighbors and others who have worked over time to bring water utility reform forward are excited to hear what the candidates have to say going forward.

It continues to be outrageous that small volume residential citizens can pay as much as 78% of their water/sewer bill for service charges, while some above average volume users can pay as little as 11%.
Will the candidate support removing the federal income tax surcharge on the water rates?
Will the candidate support lowering the base service charge that all customers must pay before receiving the first drop of water?
Will the candidates support discontinuing the use of the water utility as a cash cow for the city’s general fund?

The Pool Under Main Street

Posted on by
Reply

While we are still in the heat of summer, WTVR has a cool little report on “Richmond’s most famous pool, built 90 years ago – under the Altria Theater”.

Excerpt:

Tile from Spain and Italy covered everything, even some of the ceilings.

The pool was deep – nine and a half feet in the deep end, which had a diving board. It was still there until just a few years ago, Miller said.

The city would take over the historic building, turning it into the Mosque concert and theater venue.

—

The pool was filled in and covered over with concrete – it was just too structurally unsound.

But the original wall tile and floor edging, including the depth markers, remain in this 90-year-old uncanny pool room now serving as a storage area.

New Petition Asks For Political Debate On Water Utility Reform

Posted on by
Reply

Building on previous efforts, a new online petition asks local candidates to address water utility reform issues.

Of course, this issue has been brought up before here, and more recently in the Washington Post.

From the new petition language:

We need our local elections to be more than just popularity contests. To that end, citizens need to demand more substantive discussion of issues and platforms. In the last six years or so, issues have been consistently raised by grassroots citizens in regard to reforming the City of Richmond’s water utility.
We point to the previous Change.org petition, “Reform Richmond’s Water Rates”, with over 1700 signatures. We reference the Sierra Club Falls of the James’ statement on how there are also significant conservation concerns with the City utility’s relatively high base rate for residents. We call your attention to the recent Washington Post editorial, with the headline, Richmond Is Ripping Off It’s Residents”. It is outrageous that small volume residential citizens can pay as much as 78% of their water/sewer bill for service charges, while some above average volume users can pay as little as 11%. Furthermore, we note that the City administration has broken its promise to list all charges on their billing.

We the undersigned feel that the Richmond water rates are a vital but neglected issue that should be addressed in this election in November. The undersigned request that all candidates address this issue and request that all debates include these 3 questions:

Will the candidate support removing the federal income tax surcharge on the water rates?
Will the candidate support lowering the base service charge that all customers must pay before receiving the first drop of water?
Will the candidates support discontinuing the use of the water utility as a cash cow for the city’s general fund?

6th Annual James River Splash & Dash Coming Up This Weekend

Posted on by
Reply

From the press release:

On Saturday, July 16, Richmonders will once again take to the James River for the 6th Annual James River Splash & Dash, presented by Swedish Match and sponsored by Riverside Outfitters. The event, a fundraiser for the James River Association, features a one-of-a-kind 6k trail run or 1 mile walk on Belle Isle followed by an inner tube race across the James ending at Historic Tredegar.

This year a new 1 mile walk option has been added for participants not up to completing a 6k, but still want to participate in the event.

Participants should be ready to have fun, get wet, and navigate an uneven trail with obstacles of all kinds, including rocks, roots, and mud. An after party at the finish line includes live music from Downriver, BackTrack and Sturgeon City, beverages from Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, and food from RVA Street Foodies featuring Richmond’s best food trucks.

Racers age 10 and up are encouraged to participate. Registration is $50 per person, which includes an event t-shirt and beverage ticket.

To register for the event or to learn more about the James River Splash & Dash, presented by Swedish Match and sponsored by Riverside Outfitters, visit www.jrsplashanddash.org by Wednesday, July 13th.

Another Editorial From Goldman On Utility Reform

Posted on by
1

Paul Goldman has yet another Washington Post editorial that follows up on the long-running water utility reform campaign by neighborhood residents. In this one, he gets down to numbers and compares to food tax.

From editorial:

The food tax bill is now about $80 dollars a year for the average low-income family – and it’s still considered too high by such groups as the NAACP and Democratic liberals. We agree.

But in Richmond, the average poor family is paying $150 to $200 a year for regressive, non-existent taxes embedded within their utility bills.

City leaders, aware of these facts, refuse to take action.

…
Based on Richmond’s new budget, DPU will likely collect between about $30 million of such revenue. Of that, roughly $7 million will be fleeced from the poor.

And again, the real question is how will Council and Mayoral candidates acknowledge and confront this and other financial issues?

Belle Island River Rescue

Posted on by
Reply

WTVR reports on yet another James River rescue from this afternoon:

Virginia State Police and the Richmond Fire Department rescued a woman and two girls from the rocks near Belle Isle in Richmond Saturday afternoon.

The group made it out onto the rocks, but was unable to get back due to high water.

Thankfully no one was hurt.

Reminder- when the river level is high like it is now, everyone must wear a life jacket by law.

Washington Post: Richmond is ripping off its residents

Posted on by
Reply

Thankfully, Norman Leahy and Paul Goldman pick up on Oregon Hill residents’ long-running campaign for utility reform.

Will we see responses from Mayoral candidates?

From their Washington Post column:

The government in Virginia’s capital, Richmond, has a dirty little secret: It uses a little-known city charter provision to rip off poor residents by adding a phony, non-existent “tax” — including a bogus federal “tax” charge — to their water and certain other utility bills.

Over the years, this unconscionable rip-off has totaled many hundreds of millions of dollars. It stems from a Jim Crow-era state law added to Richmond’s charter at the request of city leaders.

Pool Prods On PILOT

Posted on by
Reply

Laurel Street neighbor Charles Pool had a “Correspondent of the Day” letter to the editor in today’s Times Dispatch:

Editor, Times-Dispatch:
Your editorial, “Fix it,” makes some good points regarding Petersburg’s troubled water utility, but what about Richmond’s own deplorable water billing? Unlike Petersburg, Richmond tacks on a payment in lieu of federal income tax onto its water bill. Charging federal income tax on the water bill costs Richmond water customers about $5 million annually and is the most regressive way to raise general funds for the city.
Richmond’s monthly water and sewer service charge, the amount the customer pays before drawing the first gallon of water, is almost $10 higher than Petersburg’s. At $29.03, Richmond’s minimum monthly service charge is one of the highest in the country, and disproportionately penalizes those who conserve water. Many Richmonders are not aware of this high service charge because it is still not shown on the customer’s bill, after years of promising to do so.
Richmond is blessed to own its water utility, but it is wrong to use water, which is a necessity, as a cash cow for padding the city’s general fund. Richmond’s water billing may be more efficient but less fair than Petersburg’s.
Charles Pool.
Richmond.

For more perspective on this, click here. Perhaps Mayoral candidates would like to speak to this issue also.

Hydro-Electric Proposal and Future Of James River

Posted on by
Reply

This morning some people were surprised by this headline in the Times Dispatch: “Application filed for hydroelectric project at Bosher’s Dam”.
If they had attended the author’s talk earlier this week, they might not have been. Tredegar Iron Works and other Richmond industry relied and used hydroelectric power well into the last century.
For myself and perhaps other Oregon Hill residents, this recalls earlier conversations and speculation about riverfront development and ambitions.

Hopefully, regardless of whether the hydroelectric proposal happens or not, it adds on pressure to do something to improve the river’s health and accessibility AS WELL AS forcing Dominion Power to do more with distributed, renewable energy.

Was the City’s utility department authorized to oppose this proposal, submitted in February? And if so, by who?

This also figures into a Kanawha Canal restoration goal that ‘public private partnership’ Venture Richmond unofficially announced earlier this month. I guess the local media is still not ready to report or discuss this yet, but the devil will be in the details- including water levels and water use, recreational opportunities, whether Venture Richmond will respect neighbors’ very reasonable concerns going forward, and costs in relation to other priorities. The City’s Department of Public Utilities manages the Kanawha Canal level as well as the City’s river level. Yes, there’s a Richmond Riverfront Plan, but we all know how these plans are pretty subjective- for example, there’s no Tredegar Green amphitheater in the Plan and there was a previous canal restoration plan that has been thrown aside.

Going back to this hydroelectric proposal, it may be that upriver (and more affluent) neighbors are able to ‘NIMBY‘ it, or maybe the environmental issues with even micro-hydro-electric at this site are too large to overcome, or maybe there is even more interest in the longterm in getting rid of Bosher’s Dam altogether. But the point is, this proposal and others should be part of a more open, public conversation over the future of the James River, local energy/water policy, and our local government.