EBMUD Excessive Water Use Penalties Hitting Houses But Not Apartment Buildings
– Single family households face excessive water use penalties but multifamily buildings are exempt. –
The water conservation rates are focused on “encouraging reduced water use” by single family residences. EBMUD established an Excessive Water Use Ordinance #364-15 on April 28, 2015, effective May 29, 2015, that prohibits excessive use of water. Single-family residential customers who use more than 80 units (59,840 gallons) of water per billing period are subject to a $2 penalty for each unit (or portion of a unit) over the 80 unit threshold.
The excessive water use ordinance will penalize single family households that use 1,000 gallons per day, which is four times the amount of water used by the average single family residential customer. Sophia Skoda, EBMUD Treasury Manager confirmed to the Piedmont Civic Association that multifamily buildings will not be penalized for excessive water use.
Multifamily developments also appear to receive preferential treatment in the fee structure for new water meters. New single family homes pay $16,100 – $304,500 (in region 3-D) for a water meter depending on the EBMUD region of the proposed house and meter size. Multi-family developments pay $9,370 – $32,000 (in region 3-D) per dwelling unit in the project.
EBMUD outreach to discourage wasting of water
On May 14, 2015, EBMUD made 5,065 robocalls to their customers explaining the drought restrictions. This calling program cost $3.846 or $0.027 per call. Residents are encouraged to report the wasting of water to www.ebmud.com/reportwaterwaste . In May, 2015, 4,000 water wasters were reported and investigated.
