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Major plant losings to raise rates
Saturday, November 21, 1998 By Timothy McNulty, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The shutdowns of the LTV Corp. Hazelwood coke works and the Nabisco bakery in East Liberty will drain an estimated $1 million in annual revenue from the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, possibly rippling into higher rates for other customers.
"The only way to maintain the way we're doing (business) is rate increases," authority Chairman Joseph Preston, a state House member, said at a meeting yesterday.
The authority board will discuss the budget and rates at its December meeting.
Water rates already are scheduled to increase by 2.5 percent next year. The authority agreed last year to raise rates 2.5 percent this year and again in 1999.
The authority's annual subsidy payment to Pennsylvania-American Water Co.-- which keeps the rates of the company's city customers at the same level as those of authority customers -- has increased by $800,000 this year. The subsidy is now $3 million, up from the $2.2 million budgeted for the year.
Preston, D-East Liberty, and other board members said they would again lobby City Council and Mayor Murphy to cap the subsidy. Council has declined to do so in the past because that would lead to bigger water bills for Pennsylvania-American customers in Brookline, Beechview and other southern city neighborhoods.
Preston said he has not yet met with the Murphy administration to discuss the mayor's proposed 20 percent increase of water rates for nonprofit organizations, part of the mayor's $336 million 1999 budget.
The increase -- which would not be applied to churches and synagogues -- would raise $2.3 million, which Murphy wants the authority to forward to the city's operating budget. Preston said he was concerned that protecting places of worship from the rate increase could violate state laws on uniform taxation.
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