Richland County sewer customers angry about rising bills
Richland County residents who recently switched to county sewer service are upset with an increase in utility bills that go along with it.
John Rolfe said his water bill jumped from around $30 a month to $50 after his sewer service switched from the city of Columbia to Richland County service at the beginning of the year. The Hopkins resident said he was told the 67% increase was the base rate of the county’s sewer service.
Now an angry Rolfe says he would rather go on a septic tank and well water than pay the increased charge.
“I’ll put a porta-potty in my front yard,” Rolfe said.
Richland County is reviewing its base rate policy for newer customers in the unincorporated parts of the county, moving toward a system based on usage more similar to Columbia’s. Now, the county charges a flat $55.68 fee for sewer service to the 1,200 former city customers in the Hopkins area. It could instead charge customers based on how much water they actually use in a month, which is how the city bills its customers.
“These are hard choices people in my district didn’t know they were going to have to make,” Councilwoman Chakisse Newton said at a council committee meeting last week. “Economics make a difference. Some wouldn’t notice a $15-20 increase. For some, it’s a real hardship.”
Newton, who represents the Hopkins area, said she was told residents would not see increases in their bills when the county took over the Hopkins-area sewer lines from the city of Columbia in January, since the homes are in a county service area.
“That is not what is supposed to happen, and we need to fix it,” Newton said. “I wouldn’t have supported the change if I knew rates were going to go up.”
Tariq Hussain, the county’s deputy utilities director, pointed out that many customers in Lower Richland who have transferred from city service are paying lower bills than they were previously.
A study done before the changeover estimated most of the 1,200 customers in the Hopkins area who were on city water would not see any change in their bills or would be paying a lower amount at a base rate of $55.68, according to the county utilities department. But around 37% of customers were using so little water that their bills actually rose between $10 and $30 under the new base rate plan.
The county said it does not have water usage information for city customers prior to taking over the system.
The county is studying changing to a usage-based fee. But any rate charged to county sewer customers would have to keep up with the financial costs of the sewer system, argued Councilman Bill Malinowski.
“If it has a usage meter, and we budget based on $50 a month, and find out most users only use $25 worth a month, we have a different problem,” said Malinowski.
Charging a base rate is also similar to the structure of private utilities, including Blue Granite Water Company, which Hussain noted is currently applying for a rate increase of up to 56% for dozens of Richland and Lexington County neighborhoods.
The discussion comes shortly after Richland County recently completed a new sewer line to the underserved Lower Richland community.
The county began accepting connections at a discounted rate to its new Lower Richland lines last year.
Sewer service in rural Lower Richland has been a lightning rod for Richland County in recent years, with residents expressing concern or outright opposition to the county’s efforts to expand sewer service in the area — precisely because of concerns about added costs.
At the time, Richland County pointed out the new sewer line will eliminate the need for “poop ponds” — open-air pits that contain localized sewage — at Gadsden Elementary and Hopkins Middle Schools, as well as in the Franklin Park neighborhood.
Gadsden Elementary’s pond sits behind a chain-link fence about 20 to 30 yards from where children play during recess, The State reported last year. Hopkins Middle’s is not far from the school’s tennis courts.
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