Your water bill could get even more expensive
The city plans to give the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection power to jack up water rates even if there isn’t a drought emergency.
Proposed regulations published in the City Record show the agency is seeking permission to impose a new, higher “water-shortage rate” for conservation purposes.
The city has always had the authority to impose higher rates during a severe drought, but has never done so.
The new rules would loosen the criteria to include any situation that results in a water shortage, such as a system breakdown.
Owners of one-family homes currently pay an average $1,000 annual water bill. Apartment-building owners are billed roughly $700 per tenant.
Lawmakers slammed the New Year’s surprise.
“New Yorkers are already getting socked with high water rates. The last thing we should be doing is having the DEP commissioner and the Water Board unilaterally raising water rates,” said Queens City Councilman Eric Ulrich, a member of the Environmental Protection Committee.
Ulrich said he would request that the council hold a hearing on the proposal.
The move comes as the DEP is making $1 billion in repairs to the upstate Delaware Aqueduct, a section of which is leaking 35 million gallons of water a day.
The aqueduct provides more than half the city’s tap water.