Honolulu City Council advances sewer fees bill

Yahoo

28-05-2025

Mayor Rick Blangiardi administration's proposed 10-year, 115 % sewer fee rate increase that's expected to begin this summer has been countered by the Honolulu City Council.
The Council's five-­member Budget Committee voted 4-1 Tuesday, with Radiant Cordero dissenting, to approve passage of a committee draft of the city-initiated Bill 60.
Budget Committee Chair Tyler Dos Santos-­Tam's version of the measure, which shaves the city's decade-­long span for increased rates down to about six years, will start Jan. 1, 2026 and run through 2031.
Dos Santos-Tam's Bill 60 proposes sewer fee increases for a household that uses about 6, 000-gallons per month—deemed 50 % of all single-family households in Honolulu—equates to a 6 % increase in sewer fees in fiscal year 2026, 7.5 % in fiscal year 2027, 8.5 % in fiscal year 2028, followed by 9 % over the remaining three fiscal years.
If adopted, Bill 60 would see a 60 % base charge—a fixed monthly fee—and a 40 % volumetric charge, or fees based on monthly water usage.
Currently, city and county sewer bills calculate a 70 % base charge—a fee of $77.55 for all single-family homes—and a 30 % volumetric rate, which is applied equally for every 1, 000 gallons used, the city Department of Environmental Services states.
ENV indicates that a household using 6, 000 gallons per month pays $99.77—with the base of $77.55 plus $22.22 for the volumetric rate.
Dos Santos-Tam's version of Bill 60 also will align with ENV's 6-year capital improvement projects plan. 'So we can get through a full CIP cycle, ' he added. 'And then we can deal with what happens in the out years thereafter.'
Under Dos Santos-Tam's Bill 60, the budget committee voted to allow 'rule-­making authority ' for ENV to set up a program called Customer Assistance for Residential Environmental Services, or CARES, to help with 'affordability and equity ' of increased sewer fee rates.
Sewer customers who qualify based on household income of less than 80 % area median income will be eligible for a $20 to $25 credit on their monthly base fee.
The program will be funded at $10 million per year. Customers will have to apply for the program to prove eligibility and then be re-verified every six months, ENV states.
Bill 60 is scheduled to return for a third and final reading before the full Council on June 4.
In October, ENV initially proposed to increase sewer fees annually for the next 10 years—by 9 % over the first six years, followed by smaller annual increases of 8 %, 7 %, 6 % and 5 % over the subsequent four years.
But by April, ENV Director Roger Babcock presented to the Council's Budget Committee the so-called 6 % option—which sees sewer rates rise by 6 % on July 1.
Those rates would increase by 7.5 % in 2027, 8.5 % in 2028, 9 % in the following four years, then rise by 8 %, 7.5 % and 7 % in the final three years, ending in 2035.
City officials say proposed sewer fee hikes are necessary to support ongoing wastewater operations and maintenance efforts, as well as a $10.1 billion capital improvement program for Oahu's wastewater collection and treatment system that is planned through 2040.
The fee hikes also will fund projects to prepare the city's wastewater infrastructure for climate change and sea-level rise, city officials say.
And they assert the work includes a $2.5 billion upgrade to the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant as required under a 2010 federal consent decree.
Previously, Council Chair Tommy Waters—who does not sit on the budget committee—offered his version of Bill 60, a 6.75 % increase for the first five years, starting July 1.
The initial increases would be followed by an 8.75 % increase for the next two years, then a decrease to 7.75 %, 6.75 % and 5.5 % over the remaining years, 'thereby creating savings, ' Waters said previously, adding instead of a 100 % increase over the decade, 'it would amount to approximately about a 70 % increase over 10 years.'
But at Tuesday's hearing, Waters admitted his version of the bill was found to have calculation errors. 'We started from 2012 rather than 2016 … which is the last date that sewer increases took effect, ' he explained.
During a presentation, ENV Director Roger Babcock highlighted that Waters' proposed Bill 60 in fiscal year 2026 would provide less revenues—about $397.5 million, a 13 % drop—compared with the city's current revenues of $457.03 million devoted to sewer funding.
'So that's a $60 million decrease, ' Babcock said, 'which would be very problematic for the program.'
In contrast, Babcock noted the city's proposed 6 % option would provide $484.4 million in revenue needed to support required sewage system upgrades.
Initially stating he'd resubmit a corrected version of his measure, Waters later backed Dos Santos-Tam's draft of Bill 60.
Still, Waters noted households using 6, 000 gallons of water or less per month could see their sewer bills rise by over 61 %, from $99.77 per month to $160.85 per month.
'And those using 9, 000 gallons per month, which is the typical user—a family with two kids, a dog, maybe in-laws—that would go up from $110 to $204 ' per month, an over 85 % increase, said Waters. 'I mean that's really what we're voting on.'
At the meeting, city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services Director Andy Kawano favored Dos Santos-Tam's measure as 'revenue calculations will meet our required minimums going forward through 10 years.'
However, 'there could be an option, if it's more palatable for Council members, to truncate the (10-year ) term to five to seven years, that's possible, ' Kawano claimed. 'If we do that, we would meet our required minimums for every year, for one through five or one through seven, depending on what Council members decide.'
Ways to defray the overall cost of the city's wastewater operations also were touched on at the meeting.
During public testimony, Frank Doyle, a former city and county ENV director, testified the Council and city should work together to end the 2010 federally-mandated consent decree that included upgrading the island's sewage treatment plants to 'secondary treatment.'
Although secondary treatment does not make the water drinkable, it does turn it into recycled water that can be used for things like landscaping, city officials say.
'Since entering the consent decree the city has spent billions of dollars for improvements of our wastewater system, and has essentially completed almost all of the requirements of the decree except for the one, largest project—a $2.5 billion (secondary treatment ) project for Sand Island, ' Doyle said. 'If secondary treatment was required at Sand Island (Wastewater Treatment Plant ) in 2010—because it really holds some significant public health or environmental concern—that project would have been prioritized immediately.'
'Instead, it comes in last, not needed until 2030, ' he said, adding no real public health concern occurred in 2010. 'And there isn't any today.'
Doyle requested the Council 'urge the administration to continue to pursue a discussion with EPA ' on the consent decree. 'And if the administration doesn't want to do it, the Council should do it, ' he added.
In 2010 the negotiated consent decree included three phases and a 25-year implementation schedule, the city says.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the work was meant to reduce the public health risk caused by exposure to pathogens in raw sewage and the amount of harmful pollutants affecting the island's marine environment.
At the time, overflows caused millions of gallons of untreated sewage to be discharged into water off Oahu. The city had to pay a total fine of $1.6 million to be split between the federal government and state to resolve violations of the Clean Water Act and Hawaii's water pollution law, the EPA states.
Those violating acts included the March 24, 2006, Beachwalk force main break which spilled about 50 million gallons of sewage into the Ala Wai Canal, according to the EPA.
For his part, Waters stated 'as a Council, we've asked the administration to discuss with the EPA removing the need for secondary treatment or extending the term of the consent decree.'
'We need to extend the sewer fees, but not for the full 10 years, as requested, ' he added, 'to give us time to work with the EPA and find alternatives to funding the wastewater system.'