House committee will vote Thursday; Moffitt eyes amicable transfer, but Assembly may force change
The city should lose control of the region’s largest water system, a report from a state legislative study committee said Friday.
The long-expected report by the Metropolitan Sewerage/Water System Committee was met with dismay by city officials, who said the mountains’ largest urban area should run its own water system. Residents opposing the change launched a petition drive about the same time the report was released.
But committee Chairman Rep. Tim Moffitt said in the report and during a Friday interview that handing over control of the system to the Buncombe County Metropolitan Sewerage District would protect noncity residents. The water system serves about 125,000 people in Asheville and nearby.
“The noncity of Asheville ratepayers should not continually face the threat of double, triple and possibly quadruple increases in their water rates,” the Buncombe County Republican said.
Because the city has taken money in the past from water revenues, it should receive limited compensation, he said.
Moffitt has previously said Asheville should be compensated for the reservoirs, treatment plants and other infrastructure with a book value of $173 million.
The change could lead to a stepped-up repair schedule accompanied by annual water rate increases for all customers, Metropolitan Sewerage District officials have said. MSD is an independent body that controls the county’s sewer system. Its members are appointed by county government as well as local towns and cities.
The committee is expected to approve the report Thursday in Raleigh. It does not provide legislation that would force the change because Moffitt said he would like the sewerage district and city work out a transfer.
If they don’t, the General Assembly could act next year, he said. There would be no guarantee of its passage.
“The next logical step is to put turf battles aside, develop a plan that is acceptable for everyone and move forward with it. But if they don’t, we will work it out for them,” he said.
Moffitt got the Republican-controlled legislature to create the study committee after the city raised water rates for some businesses last year.
City Council members defended the hike, saying residential water customers had been subsidizing high-volume users.
The nearly 300-page report was compiled after three meetings, including a Feb. 23 public comment session at the WNC Agricultural Center in which more than 70 people spoke, most against the change.
The report attempts to explain the tangled history of the water system. Key events include a Depression-era merger of city and county systems to cope with bankruptcy.
It was that merger that gave noncity residents a special status. In most water systems, those living outside city limits are charged higher rates.
But the General Assembly passed the Sullivan Act in 1933 specifically forbidding differential rates in the Asheville system. Laws passed in 2005, called Sullivan Acts II and III, restated that rule.
The rules also say that Asheville, unlike other cities, cannot deny water service to noncity property owners and cannot use voluntary annexation as a condition for extending service.
Those kind of rules are appropriate because water customers, including those outside Asheville, are the true owners of the system, Moffit said.
“Title does not mean ownership,” Moffit said. “I think the city has taken stewardship to mean ownership.”
City officials disputed several aspects of the report, including its take on the system’s history and their motivation regarding noncity customers.
Councilman Jan Davis said the city tried to get the Sullivan Acts overturned but the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled against Asheville in 2008. Since then, the council has not tried to get differential rates, he said.
“That is how it is done in most cities, but we recognize that we are beyond that,” Davis said.
City figures say it would cost $1.3 billion to build the water system if someone were starting from scratch. But the current value of the reservoirs, water treatment plants, pipes and other infrastructure is about $173 million.
In the past, Moffitt has said Asheville should be compensated for the system. But the report highlights $114 million in water revenues the city took to use for other services from 1957-2005. County government took a lesser amount of money from the system.
Davis said the way the systems merged was not unusual but that the restrictions on Asheville were. Should the system be taken, Asheville taxpayers deserve to be paid for investments in reservoirs and original infrastructure.
“There is clearly a compensation that needs to be made to the citizens of Asheville,” he said, adding “I am hoping they are open to rebuttal.”
Comments can be made on the committee’s website until the Thursday meeting.
April 14, 2012
(Citizen Times)
By Joel Burgess
jburgess@citizen-times.com
